Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Romani Women and Girls in Occupied Poland during World War II

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the various forms of sexual violence experienced by Romani women and girls in occupied Poland during World War II. These acts were perpetrated by German soldiers and SS men and their collaborators, in particular Ukrainian nationalists, as well as by Soviet soldiers during the period of liberation. Romani women found themselves in an especially precarious situation due to both Nazi persecution as well as long-standing history of exoticization and sexualization of Romani women in Europe, dating back to the eighteenth century. The persecution of Romani people during WWII, including sexual violence and assault of Romani women and girls, still remains on the margins of Holocaust research. Moreover, the harmful and traumatic experiences of gender-based violence continue to remain taboo subjects within Romani culture. Drawing on testimonies of Romani survivors collected in Polish by the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, this article examines how the affected women and girls, as well as other survivors, talked or rather remained silent about sexual violence. I also discuss the forms, situations, and patterns of violence perpetrated by various groups and explore the influence of cultural assumptions and situational conditions on sexual and gender-based violence against Romani women and girls.