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One Blood, One Flame: Volume II

The Oral Histories of the Yugoslav Gypsies before, during and after WWII

Although most Gypsy communities in Yugoslav survived WWII, many suffered horrible tragedies. In Volume I, we saw what happened to the Roma in Nish, where the German army established their first concentration camp in the Balkans. In Volume II, the Roma tell their stories for the rest of Serbia. Many different kinds of Gypsies lived in Serbia before WWII. Most had never been nomadic in the sense that they lived fulltime in wagons. Yet many made their living as touring musicians, playing with Gypsy bands in fashionable hotels and resorts. Others took their wares (reed baskets, bridles, ropes, horseshoes, wooden troughs, second-hand clothes, and charcoal) to sell in village markets. Almost all had a permanent home they returned to after conducting their "summer" business. According to many of their oral histories, this is what saved them. They were not nomadic. They had homes; they had jobs. Many of their gadjo neighbors respected them. In fact, some Serbian authorities intervened on behalf of the Gypsies, telling the German commanders what good workers Gypsies were, how honest they were.

Unfortunately, many Roma (along with Jews and Serbs) were rounded up in the initial bloodletting in 1941. In the cities of Kragujevac Kraljevo and Leskovac, hundreds if not thousands, of Gypsies were murdered as hostages, but also as undesirables.

Despite many tragedies, most Serbian Gypsies survived WWII. Even most of those who were taken to Germany as volunteers or slave labors returned home after the war. As with the oral histories in Volume I, these stories in Volume II deal not only with the war, but also how Gypsies lived in Serbia before and after the war. Many poignant stories reveal their traditions, myths and legends brought with them from old India hundreds of years ago. Told with honesty and frankness, these stories reveal how Gypsies saw themselves, using their best and worst traditions to survive.

Although I organized the filming, transcribing, translating and editing of these oral histories over a three-year period, I never censored any part of them. For better or worse, I let these people tell their own stories in their own words. I made no judgment on their experiences, or their language. Yet from diverse backgrounds, from different castes and tribes, living hundreds of kilometers apart, most told similar stories of their war experiences; older Romani men taken away as hostages; younger Romani men taken away as slave labor; Romani women abused; many raped, with some sacrificing their bodies to save younger girls from having to face such experiences. Yet, these stoies are not filled with doom and gloom. If anything, the Roma show that no matter how tragic their lives were, they prevailed with a positive spirit steeped in their ancient, Indian philosophy of life.

Paul Polansky

Knez Selo, Serbia

November 2007