The Romani Holocaust we failed to remember

I grew up in the countryside of Western France. Since I was 2, I have been going to school in a nearby city called Montsûrs. Over 15 years, I got to know every street and each neighborhood of this 2000-inhabitant town. I knew its history by heart. At least I thought I did.

Suddenly I am a 18-year-old high school student, and my hometown comes up in history class for the very first time. My ears pricked up “…there were a few internment camps there.” 

Wait, what?

Yes, I grew up in a city which 80 years earlier had “hosted” Romani people. It was only after I turned 18 that I learned about this well-hidden part of our history. Upon returning home from school, I questioned my family, and still, no one knew what to say. Despite having grown up there as well, my mom was equally oblivious.. 

When I asked my grandparents, the only answer I got was a “yes”. No explanation, as if it was all normal, as if no elaboration was necessary. But acknowledgement was not enough for me. It did not just “happen” – people must have known about it and let it carry on. Why are people still keeping silent? I need answers.

During World War 2, France let itself fall into the depths of fascism with the French government and especially Philippe Pétain, the leader of the collaborationist regime, who decided to stop the fight against Germany. Some collaborated, others kept silent and followed (another form of collaboration) and a very small minority resisted. I will not digress to tell the history of 1940s France during that period but the department my family is from, the Mayenne, was occupied by Germans. 

Starting from 1940, during Pétain’s government, 30 internment camps opened in France, two of which were in Mayenne. In France about 500 were sent to death camps, including 200 Romani people living in Normandy and Britany. The population did try to resist with every tool available. For example, they saved children by hosting them and registering them in schools with Christian names.

For my city, the camp opened in 1940 and could have 160 people. It closed two years later. 85 people lived there, including 15 children. When the camp closed, some people got free, while others were deported to another camp, the biggest one nearby called Montreuil-Bellay. 

The story of Romani people during World War 2 has been glossed over for a long time. The very existence of these camps was gatekept for generations. The most famous to this day is the previously mentioned camp of Montreuil-Bellay which had 1,086 nomads, where 60 of them died. It closed in 1946, a mere 80 years ago. 

The Roma genocide committed by Germany was recognized by France in 1958. Yet, the French’s role in hosting internment camps wasn’t recognized until 2016, 70 years after the last one closed. François Hollande came to Montreuil-Bellay to deliver a speech in which France finally acknowledged its implication in the Romani people’s detention. 

I can barely imagine the pain it has been for those who suffered fighting for recognition. Nor can I imagine living for all that time in silence and carrying the weight of that history.

One of my grandmothers was born in Montsûrs in 1942, the year the internment camp closed. I called her to write this article and to have her exact words. What she told me is that she heard about it, but she doesn’t really know much about it. She even forgot it happened –  as if it were a mundane, forgettable detail of history. I asked if that was something that people talked about when she grew up, but no, she said no one remembered. 85 people were captured in a camp near their house, but no one knew, nobody cared. 

The reason why no one really talks about it is because it was erased from the collective memory, likely from a sense of shame. Nobody wants to remember that the history of their town has been marked by complicity in such heinous acts as this one. 

When talking about these internment camps to locals, they are either, like me, surprised by the information or they reflect with some empathy before forgetting about it again. Yet, my village has a majority of far-right voters. Which just goes to show that people never really learn from their mistakes. Even my grandparents, claiming their opposition to Germans, including one of them whose father was captured by Germans, are against immigration and voting for far-right parties that use the very same rhetoric. 

For 18 years, I watched the houses on the side of the road and I always thought there had only been housing projects there. It strikes me now as I pass by that people live on the same lands where the Porajmos took place. But still, there is no indication of the past, no plaque, no memorial. People just live, and they forget.

I feel betrayed by the way my community falls into the same old hateful patterns, and I feel ashamed of how my roots forget THEIR own. Growing up in a place that was supposed to be home, when nowadays my ideas are not even welcomed anymore hurts. But wanting to escape has shaped my anger and my hunger to change things. The way I am is the result of that part of my identity. By studying in Sciences Po, I now have a say, a desire to promote human rights as much as I can during my career. Let the mistakes of our past drive us to fight for a better future.

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