Jews and Gypsies: Myths & Reality
Jews & Gypsies: Myths & Reality
by Ruth Barnett
146 pages. Paperback
ISBN 978-1492718505
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Review by DAMIAN LE BAS
Editor
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WHO are the Jews?
As Ruth Barnett- who escaped the Nazi persecution of Jews on a children’s transport from Germany as a small child- points out in this book, plenty of people still have some pretty weird answers to that question: I’ll take a bet that’s because they don’t know many Jews themselves. If you don’t know any Jewish people personally, perhaps it’s easier to convince yourself that “the Jews rule the world”, or “the Jews control the banks”, or “the Jews hate the Christians”.
I reckon it’s not so easy to believe these things whilst knowing they don’t apply, for instance, to your old mate. He prefers bitter to lager, but doesn’t mind the odd bottle of Sol; supports the Arsenal; has a soft spot for obscure 60s reggae tunes; occasionally wears some funny old pairs of socks, and would be there in a flash to help you pick up the pieces if things ever hit the skids. That’s the thing about individuals: at least they’re real. You can really talk to them, argue with them, shake their hand and wish them on their way.
Try doing this with a “group” of people: “the Jews”; “the Poles”; “the Gypsies”. I have personally never tried standing in the street attempting to shake the hands of “the Gypsies”: perhaps it’s because I’d have to start off by shaking my own hand, and I’m not sure how that would look to the rest of the passing public. The word “dinlo” springs to mind. Or perhaps it’s because I suspect, deep down, that it’s stupid to even think about a whole ethnic group as definable, accessible, in that way.
The idea of “the Gypsies” as a clearly defined group, easily spotted, easily separable from the rest of the human race like square pegs from round ones, is a pretty stupid idea. What’s more, it’s a pretty stupid idea that’s led people to commit some of the most evil crimes in the history of the planet. The question of who exactly qualified as a Gypsy- given that lots of people have a lot of Romani ancestry, or a little bit, or almost none, or are “full blown Romani Gypsies”, or might be anything in between- left the Nazis scratching their heads. But they decided to keep it simple: basically, anyone from "Gypsy hybrids with predominantly German blood component", up to and including “full Gypsies”, should ultimately be gassed and turned into the contents of an ashtray. So I, and plenty of you reading this, would have been toast. The “Gypsy question”? Problem solved! Or so the Nazis thought.
What shocks Ruth Barnett as much as it shocks me is that lots of people- most of whom know nothing at all about the history of the Porrajmos, the Romani Holocaust- still think along these lines, and it’s incredibly difficult to shift their thinking off this track: Barnett deserves high praise for the energy she puts into the attempt. It’s still so tempting to treat “the Gypsies” as a clearly defined group of people who are all basically the same, with the same problems, the same personalities, the same tendencies to steal, cheat, lie, rob, curse, descend and generally ruin your happy non-Gypsy life. Recently, we’ve seen leading British politicians doing exactly this: Muslims will be used to it, too, as will Jamaicans, as will the Jews. They call for a “debate” but actually their words are always a final pronouncement: “this is the problem, this is what needs to be done. Let’s get to work on solving the Gypsy question.”
Ruth Barnett’s book is the opposite to this kind of closed-minded thinking. Years of speaking about the Holocaust in education, and of personal research into Romani history, has given her insights into our culture that few people possess. But what she shows, by comparing the myths that exist about both Romanies and Jews with the realities of their lives and cultures, is that it’s not that hard to have a more balanced view, after all.
What struck me most about this book was how strange it was that there aren’t more books like it. Romani people often feel a sense of kinship with Jews, and it’s not that hard to see why. We are both peoples from the East, spread out all over the world, have spent most of our history struggling without a homeland, usually speaking our own, different language, with our own cultural ways and traditions, all of which seem strange to the people around us. And because these things seem strange, they have led to mistrust, to fear, and so on to hatred and persecution. You could not easily count the times in European history that Jews and Romani people have been driven out, raped and murdered alongside each other. With that kind of history, you learn to live on your wits, and the entrepreneurial spirit is something else we share.
All this and much else besides is discussed in this book, which is written in plain English and will be a real eye-opener for secondary school age children through to adults. It contains helpful illustrations and good photographs, as well as a great section with personal stories from Romani and Jewish people, and some people who are a bit of both. Ruth Barnett has done a fantastic job at starting a real conversation, a real debate, by comparing things about Jews with things about Gypsies across legends, across history, and across the world today. I hope as many people as possible will read and reflect on this book. By the time they get to the end, where the Romani, Jewish and British national anthems are printed side by side, hopefully they’ll think about things a little bit differently.
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