The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
by Guenter Lewy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Guenter LewyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-05-24
ISBN: 0195142403
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
Book Review: Careful, accessible history
Summary: 5 Stars
While it tells the grizzly history of Gypsy persecution, this book does not fall prey to political pressures to exaggerate or obfuscate, such as cause some Amazon reviewers to harshly critique it. There was no Gypsy holocaust, says Lewy, but he documents the many and varied ways that the Gypsies were brutalized, dehumanized, experimented upon, and often murdered. For many the awful truth is not enough, they must also create a politically correct legend to compete with the Jewish holocaust.One need not be an historian to appreciate this book. It is off the beaten path for most readers, but to read it is to be enriched, to understand the world more completely. For me, a test of the merit of this book is that after reading it I want to locate a general history of the Gypsies. I want to know more.
Lewy does not provide insight into just the Gypsies, though, but also into the Nazis and the miserable and frightening roles played by physicians and psychiatrists. As has been detailed in histories of the Jewish holocaust, Lewy describes the essential role the medical profession played in designing and executing the most barbarous and depraved crimes against humanity. Doctors provided the intellectual justification for Nazi depravity. This is a something we should examine carefully since we Americans have also chosen to evolve into what Thomas Szasz has labeled a Therapeutic State, in which physicians have immense power. About that choice this is coincidentally a cautionary tale.
I found the book to be competently written.
Summary of The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
Roaming the countryside in caravans, earning their living as musicians, peddlers, and fortune-tellers, the Gypsies and their elusive way of life represented an affront to Nazi ideas of social order, hard work, and racial purity. They were branded as "asocials," harassed, and eventually herded into concentration camps where many thousands were killed. But until now the story of their persecution has either been overlooked or distorted.In The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, Guenter Lewy draws upon thousands of documents--many never before used--from German and Austrian archives to provide the most comprehensive and accurate study available of the fate of the Gypsies under the Nazi regime. Lewy traces the escalating vilification of the Gypsies as the Nazis instigated a widespread crackdown on the "work-shy" and "itinerants." But he shows that Nazi policy towards Gypsies was confused and changeable. At first, local officials persecuted gypsies, and those who behaved in gypsy-like fashion, for allegedly anti-social tendencies. Later, with the rise of race obsession, Gypsies were seen as a threat to German racial purity, though Himmler himself wavered, trying to save those he considered "pure Gypsies" descended from Aryan roots in India. Indeed, Lewy contradicts much existing scholarship in showing that, however much the Gypsies were persecuted, there was no general program of extermination analogous to the "final solution" for the Jews.
Exploring in heart-rending detail the fates of individual Gypsies and their families, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies makes an important addition to our understanding both of the history of this mysterious people and of all facets of the Nazi terror.
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