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Collaboration and the Genocide of Roma in Poland

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Traitors, Collaborators and Deserters in Contemporary European Politics of Memory

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ((PMMS))

Abstract

In this chapter, the analysis by Sławomir Kapralski of the summary executions of Roma carried out in 1942–1943 in southern Poland is evidence for making a distinction between three forms of collaboration: complicity, cooperation, and involvement. It is argued that different levels of collaboration can be accounted for by different degrees of social distance between local villagers and particular categories of victims: German Sinti and Roma, settled Carpathian Roma, and nomadic groups seized as they passed through the region. Finally, the author presents an example of collaboration of a Rom, the infamous Rudolf Kwiek, and attempts to understand his motives as well as the motives of the Roma who, after the war, did not in his case apply the most radical sanctions. Kapralski interprets this as an attempt to maintain the façade of the commonality of fate, which was necessary for the restoration of Roma life.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    B. Davis Lutz, J. M. Lutz, Gypsies as Victims of the Holocaust. “Holocaust and Genocide Studies” 1995, Vol. 9, No. 3.

  2. 2.

    The authors follow Helen Fein’s division of Europe during the Second World War into three “SS Zones” different from one another regarding the level of the direct involvement of the Nazi Germany’s apparatus of terror in persecuting the populations targeted as victims by National Socialism (H. Fein, Accounting for Genocide. National Responses and Jewish Victimization during the Holocaust. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.).

  3. 3.

    Lutz and Lutz, 351.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., 354–355.

  5. 5.

    Mykola Borovyk in this book explores the consequences of such situation in Ukraine for terminological conventions regarding collaboration. The convention presented in this chapter is one of the possible attempts to conceptualize non-institutional collaboration, understood broadly as “any forms of cooperation on the part of citizens of a state with the occupant authorities of another state”. (M. Borovyk, Collaboration and Collaborators in Ukraine during the Second World War: Between Myth and Memory. In: G. Grinchenko, E. Narvselius (eds.), “Formulas of Betrayal”: Traitors, collaborators and deserters in contemporary European politics of memory. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 241).

  6. 6.

    J. Ficowski, Cyganie na polskich drogach (3rd edition). Kraków-Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1985, 116, 121.

  7. 7.

    J. Connelly, Poles and Jews in the Second World War: The Revisions of Jan T. Gross. “Contemporary European History” 2002, Vol. 11, No. 4, 651.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., 651, 654.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 651.

  10. 10.

    J. Grabowski, Judenjagd. Polowanie na Żydów 1942–1945. Studium dziejów pewnego powiatu. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, 2011, 73.

  11. 11.

    Ficowski, 111.

  12. 12.

    J. W. Jones, “Every Family Has Its Freak”: Perceptions of Collaboration in Occupied Soviet Russia, 1943–1948. “Slavic Review” 2005, Vol. 64, No. 4, 748.

  13. 13.

    M. Dean, Where Did All the Collaborators Go? “Slavic Review” 2005, Vol. 64, No. 4, 796.

  14. 14.

    E. Narvselius, G. Grinchenko, “Formulas of Betrayal”: Traitors, collaborators and deserters in contemporary European politics of memory. In: G. Grinchenko, E. Narvselius (eds.), “Formulas of Betrayal”: Traitors, collaborators and deserters in contemporary European politics of memory. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 17. See also J. T. Gross, Themes for a Social History of War Experience and Collaboration. In: I. Deák, J. T. Gross and T. Judt (eds.). The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

  15. 15.

    K.-P. Friedrich, Collaboration in a “Land without a Quisling”: Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II.“Slavic Review” 2005, Vol. 64, No. 4.

  16. 16.

    J. Connelly, Why the Poles Collaborated so Little—And Why That is No Reason for Nationalist Hubris. “Slavic Review” 2005, Vol. 64, No. 4, 780–781.

  17. 17.

    See also the discussion of the concept of collaborationism in the Introduction to this volume: Narvselius, Grinchenko, “Formulas of Betrayal”…, 13–14.

  18. 18.

    The author expresses his gratitude to Leszek Gorycki for the information about this event.

  19. 19.

    IPN BU 507/239, Wyrok w imieniu Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej z dnia 31 marca 1952 r. wydany przez Sąd Wojewódzki dla m.st. Warszawy w Wydziale IV Karnym. Uzasadnienie, k. 18–19.

  20. 20.

    Testimony of Józef Siudut, from 31 January 2008. In: L. Kołodziejski, Ostatni żyjący świadkowie zbrodni. Oficjalny Portal Gminy Borzęcin. 2013. http://www.borzecin.pl/stary_portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3000&Itemid=440. (Access 10.11.2014).

  21. 21.

    M. Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalsozialistische Losung der Zigeunerfrage. Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 1996, 167–171.

  22. 22.

    R. Gilsenbach, A Synoptic Chronology of the Persecution of the Gypsies under National Socialism (1933–1945). In: D. Kenrick (ed.) The Gypsies during the Second World War. Vol. 2: In the Shadow of the Swastika. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1999, 178–179.

  23. 23.

    A. Bartosz, Małopolski szlak martyrologii Romów. Tarnów: Muzeum Okręgowe w Tarnowie, 2010, 36.

  24. 24.

    M. Antosz, Ostatni dzień życia. “W zakolu Raby i Wisły” 2005, No. 4, 31.

  25. 25.

    M. Oleksy, Wyrwana z rąk kata. http://www.szczurowa.pl/artykuly/artykul/81,60_rocznica_zaglady_szczurowskich_cyganow.html. 2003-07-09. (Access 15.03.2015).

  26. 26.

    Ficowski, 103.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 104–106.

  28. 28.

    Piotr Lipiński, Ostatni król Cyganów. “Dialog-Pheniben” Nr 11, lipiec-sierpień-wrzesień 2013, 110.

  29. 29.

    Ficowski, 88–89.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 94.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 97–98.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 99.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 100.

  34. 34.

    J. Yoors, The Gypsies. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967, 253.

  35. 35.

    One should also take into account his frustration and a grudge he hold against some of his people.

  36. 36.

    S. Kapralski, Naród z popiołów. Pamięć zagłady a tożsamość Romów. Warszawa: Scholar, 2012; S. Kapralski, The Aftermath of the Roma Genocide. From Implicit Memories to Commemoration. In: A. Weiss-Wendt (ed.), The Nazi Genocide of the Roma: Reassessment and Commemoration. New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2013.

  37. 37.

    M. Zimmermann, The Wehrmacht and the National Socialist Persecution of the Gypsies. “Romani Studies”, 2001, Vol. 11, No. 2, 112.

  38. 38.

    M. Stewart, How Does Genocide Happen? In: R. Astuti, J. Parry, C. Stafford (eds.) Questions of Anthropology, Oxford—New York: Berg, 2007.

  39. 39.

    M. Zimmermann, Die nationalsozialistische Zigeunerverfolgung in Ost- und Südosteuropaein Überblick. In: F. Fischer von Weikersthal et al. (eds.) Der nationalsozialistische Genozid an den Roma Osteuropas. Geschichte und künstlerische Verarbeitung. Köln-Weimar-Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2008, 4–5.

  40. 40.

    H. Krokowski, The Effect of Persecution on the German Sinti. In: D. Kenrick (ed.) The Final Chapter. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2006.

  41. 41.

    L. Mróz, Niepamięć nie jest zapominaniem. Cyganie-Romowie a Holokaust. “Przegląd Socjologiczny”, 2000, Vol. 49, No. 2.

  42. 42.

    G. Saathoff, Preface. In: J. von dem Knesebeck, The Roma Struggle for Compensation in Post-War Germany. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2011, ix.

  43. 43.

    G. Margalit, Obituary. Michael Zimmermann 17 November 1951–20 January 2007. “Romani Studies” Vol. 17, No. 1, 2007, 126.

  44. 44.

    Narvselius, Grinchenko, “Formulas of Betrayal”…, 18–19.

  45. 45.

    M. Stewart, The Time of the Gypsies. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1997, 28.

  46. 46.

    Y.Yurchuk and A. Marchenko, Intellectuals in Times of Troubles: Between Empowerment and Disenchantment during the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan. In: G. Grinchenko, E. Narvselius (eds.), “Formulas of Betrayal”: Traitors, collaborators and deserters in contemporary European politics of memory. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 183.

  47. 47.

    D. McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism. Tomorrow’s Ancestors. London—New York: Routledge, 1998, 52.

  48. 48.

    D. Le Bas, The Possible Implications of Diasporic Consciousness for Romani Identity. In: D. Le Bas, T. Acton (eds.) All Change! Romani Studies Through Romani Eyes. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010, 63.

  49. 49.

    Z. Bauman, Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992, 55.

  50. 50.

    B. Anderson,Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London—New York: Verso, 1991, 200–201.

  51. 51.

    P. Connerton, Seven Types of Forgetting. “Memory Studies” Vol. 1, No. 59, 2008, 62.

  52. 52.

    D. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 204–205.

  53. 53.

    Connerton, 62.

  54. 54.

    J. Prager, Presenting the Past. Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Misremembering. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998, 155–156.

  55. 55.

    B. A. Misztal, Theories of Social Remembering. Maidenhead—Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2003, 141; S. J. Brison, Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self. In: M. Bal, J. Crewe, L. Spitzer (eds.) Acts of Memory. Cultural Recall in the Present. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1999, 43; E. van Alphen, Symptoms of Discursivity: Experience, Memory and Trauma. In: M. Bal, J. Crewe, L. Spitzer (eds.), Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1999, 35.

  56. 56.

    J. C. Alexander, Trauma. A Social Theory.Cambridge: Polity, 2012.

  57. 57.

    V. Vinitzky-Serrousi, C. Teeger, Unpacking the Unspoken: Silence in Collective Memory and Forgetting. “Social Forces” Vol. 88, No. 3, 2010, 1104.

  58. 58.

    It was a local initiative, supported by the communist authorities. In the text on the tablet, the Roma victims have been referred to as “inhabitants of the village” without mentioning their ethnicity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pedagogical University of Krakow, Podchorazych, 2, 30-084, Krakow, Poland

    Sławomir Kapralski

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Correspondence to Sławomir Kapralski .

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  1. Department of Ukrainian Studies, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kharkiv, Ukraine

    Gelinada Grinchenko

  2. Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Eleonora Narvselius

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Kapralski, S. (2018). Collaboration and the Genocide of Roma in Poland. In: Grinchenko, G., Narvselius, E. (eds) Traitors, Collaborators and Deserters in Contemporary European Politics of Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66496-5_9

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