Jewish History

Ari Joskowicz (Vanderbilt University, Nashville)

After World War Two, Roma and Sinti increasingly looked toward Jewish successes to define their own expectations of post-genocidal justice. At the same time, the legal innovations, documentary work, and new narratives that Jews brought to the courtroom had unexpected consequences for the Romani quest for justice as Jewish efforts simultaneously revealed and obscured aspects of Romani persecution. The three trials at the core of this presentation demonstrate these unintended outcomes: the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945-46; the 1961 Eichmann trial; and the 1963-5 Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. All three show how Jewish and Romani interests could overlap or, just as often, be at cross-purposes—with profound consequences for the shape of our archives and the way we write the history of the Holocaust. Finally, a fourth type of legal reckoning innovated by Jewish claimants delivered some of the justice denied in criminal proceedings and unexpectedly advanced knowledge of the Romani genocide: international civil litigation.