7 . Romani families at Asperg , Germany , 22 May 1940 | German Federal Archive – Digital image Archive : R 165 Bild-244-47 . Bundesarchiv , R 165 Bild-244-47 / CC-BY-SA 3
Transcending - though not solving - national specifics , the memory of persecution suffered under Nazism has become a fundamental element of contemporary Romani identity in a transnational sense . In Spain , for example , where the Gypsies were not affected as such by Nazi racial policies , local associations commemorate the Holocaust in connection with the so-called “ Great Round-up ”, an 18th-century plan for the mass imprisonment of Spanish Gypsies aimed at their biological extinction . In Germany , meanwhile , associations competing with the Central Sinti Council have linked the historical suffering of the Nazi genocide with the plight of Romani migrants arriving from Eastern Europe , who lack the protection of German citizenship .
From the overexposed Jewish Holocaust to the blurred Romani genocide
The first memorial plaque in remembrance of the Romani genocide was installed at Dachau in 1982 . It was not until 2005 that the European Parliament issued a resolution affirming the need for recognition , and then in 2012 , the memorial for these victims of National Socialism was inaugurated in Berlin . This timeline reflects a delay in both recognition and study compared to the Jewish Holocaust . The gap had already formed in the immediate post-war period . While it is true that mainstream German ( and European ) society did not initially recognise the specificity of the Jewish genocide , and that antisemitism continued to be concealed behind questionable “ denazification ”, it is also true that Jewish victims could early on rely on a range of agencies and material resources to claim their rights . Similarly , scientific research soon gained momentum , fulfilling its dual social role of providing academic ( and even judicial ) support
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