Between mneme and anamnesis: on the memory and forgetting of the Roma Holocaust

ABSTRACT

The article argues that what is usually called ‘Roma memory of the Holocaust’ needs to be differentiated into four types, depending on the combination of two modes (mneme and anamnesis) and two genealogies of memory (bottom-up and top-down). The first type is memory unconsciously encoded in culture; the second emerges due to the unblocking of memories by external factors; the third refers to the construction of memories by the Roma movement; and the fourth accounts for individual management of memory. These types correspond with four different aspects of Roma identity: cultural (substance), social (relation), historical (process), and individual (choice).

KEYWORDS:

• Genealogies of memory
• mneme
• anamnesis
• encoding
• unblocking
• construction
• trauma
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The interviews cited here were collected in 1996–7 as part of a research project, ‘Violence and Memory,’ coordinated by the author during his time as a lecturer at Central European University. The interviews were conducted by an international team of researchers, then translated into English and transcribed. They are deposited at the Graduate School for Social Research – Center for Social Studies in Warsaw, Poland.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Slawomir Kapralski

Slawomir Kapralski is a Professor of Sociology at the Pedagogical University of Krakow. His research interests and publications focus on the theory of culture, nationalism and ethnicity, collective memory and identity, antisemitism, and the Holocaust. His special field of expertise is the history and the aftermath of the genocide of the Roma communities during World War II.