Vol. 20 · No. 4 · Issue 65 · Winter 2002

Rachel T. Greenwald
History, University of Wyoming

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Abstract

Guenter Lewy, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Robert Gellately and Nathan Stolzfus, ed., Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)

The authors of The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies and Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany employ similar methods for examining ostracism and annihilation under National Socialism. They document similarities in registration, surveillance, ghettoization, deportation, and, in many cases, murder. However, the conclusions of these two volumes authors are strikingly different. Guenter Lewy uses his data to demonstrate that Nazi policy against Gypsies in the Reichprotektorat was murderous, but only partially genocidal, since Gypsy policy was inconsistent over the course of twelve years: while Gypsies did suffer greatly under the Nazis, the Nazis had no program for systematically exterminating them. In contrast, the essayists of Social Outsiders are less likely to use the word "genocide," since the concept suggests that there is an easy distinction between racial and social outcasts under National Socialism. They collectively reject this notion and prefer instead to establish a close connection between racial and social discrimination that goes beyond ethnic and national boundaries. Gellately and Stolzfus's collection of essays see inconsistency in Nazi policy as evidence that persecution can easily become murderous, although intent may not be initially present.