Abstract: Since the 1990s, the number of films devoted to Roma issues has been increasing at an unprecedented pace. Among them, films on the extermination of the Gypsy during the Second World War can be distinguished. Porrajmos in the Romani language means: Romani Holocaust. These events were entirely absent from the public discourse for several decades following the end of the war. The key role in addressing the subject was played by the explosion of memory about the Jewish Holocaust observable since the 1960s. Porrajmos films are in all respects secondary to the representation of the Holocaust – they emerged later, use the same set of conventions of representation, and their authors are oft en the artists who emphasize their belonging to the “community of memory” of the Holocaust: once Jewish victims, nowadays their descendants. The Holocaust discourse has thus begun to fulfill the role of “a dominant culture” which allows the story of the Gypsy genocide, providing it is its subordinate version.

The passage of time paradoxically strengthens the memory of these events, generating an ever-growing number of new places, practices and other texts of remembrance. Nowadays the origin of excavating the Gypsy Holocaust from oblivion is the imminent threat of aggression experienced by members of this ethnic group.

Key words: Porrajmos, Holocaust of the Gypsies, Romanies, Films

Introduction

Since the 1990s the number of films devoted to Roma issues has been increasing at an unprecedented pace and the new century has seen further intensification of the phenomenon. Among them, films on the extermination of the Gypsy during the Second World War can be distinguished. It has been estimated that about 90% of the population of the Roma and Sinti (German Gypsies) residing in the Third Reich and the disenfranchised countries – Austria and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia – were murdered at the time. Such terrifying effectiveness would not be possible without the consent of the society - hostile or, at best, indifferent to this ethnic group. These events were totally absent from the public discourse for several decades following the end of the war.