Porrajmos. Creating Gypsy Holocaust memory in the most recent cinema

Beginning form the 1990s the number of films about Romanies has been increasing rapidly. Especially noticeable are those touching the subject of the extermination of the Gypsies during the Second World War. Porrajmos in the Romany language means: the Holocaust of the Romanies. These events were completely absent from the public discourse for several decades afterwards. The key role in bringing this subject up was played by an explosion of memories concerning the Nazi genocide of the Jews observable since the 1960s. Porrajmos films are in all respects secondary to the representation of the Holocaust: they were made later, they use the same conventions, and their creators are mostly artists who stress their adherence to a "community of memory" of the Holocaust: the Jewish victims once, and now their descendants. That is how the discourse of the Holocaust became a "dominant culture", which allows for the story of the extermination of the Gypsies only as its inferior part.
The passage of time paradoxically strengthens the memory of these events, generating more and more new places, practices and other texts of remembrance. Currently the main reason for rescuing the Romanies Holocaust from oblivion is the direct threat of aggression experienced by members of this ethnic group.

Beginning form the 1990s the number of films about Romanies has been increasing rapidly. Especially noticeable are those touching the subject of the extermination of the Gypsies during the Second World War. Porrajmos in the Romany language means: the Holocaust of the Romanies. These events were completely absent from the public discourse for several decades afterwards. The key role in bringing this subject up was played by an explosion of memories concerning the Nazi genocide of the Jews observable since the 1960s. Porrajmos films are in all respects secondary to the representation of the Holocaust: they were made later, they use the same conventions, and their creators are mostly artists who stress their adherence to a "community of memory" of the Holocaust: the Jewish victims once, and now their descendants. That is how the discourse of the Holocaust became a "dominant culture", which allows for the story of the extermination of the Gypsies only as its inferior part.
The passage of time paradoxically strengthens the memory of these events, generating more and more new places, practices and other texts of remembrance. Currently the main reason for rescuing the Romanies Holocaust from oblivion is the direct threat of aggression experienced by members of this ethnic group.