A People Uncounted: The Untold Story of the Roma

The modern genocide of the ethnic Roma "gypsy" peoples of Europe is not exactly an untold story, but it is little known and deftly told in director Aaron Yeger's documentary about the "Porajmos"—a Roma word only recently coined in relation to the WWII gypsy Holocaust, during which as much as 90 percent of the race might have perished. Yeger uses the anti-Roma atrocities as an archetype of ethnic cleansings and racial mass-murder, looking at examples that include Rwanda and Bosnia. Unlike Jews, the Roma experienced no special treatment, repatriation, or (until recently) memorials, and the minority continues to suffer slander and abuse in a current climate of resurgent European fascism. Interviews with Roma Holocaust survivors (one an incredible 105 years old) recall executions, human ash floating out of gas ovens, and the horrors of Dr. Mengele's human-experimentation lab (imagery of the preserved Auschwitz death camp is particularly haunting). A People Uncounted somewhat lacks a broader detailing of Roma/gypsy culture—defining the ethnicity here mainly in terms of persecution—but from witness testimony the viewer gathers that many Roma were "settled" folk, not the sexy dancers or nomad thieves/fortune tellers in caravans (as portrayed in an embarrassing montage of gypsy-kitsch imagery spanning Bizet's Carmen to pulp paperbacks to Hollywood). A handsomely-filmed recounting of the persecution (ongoing) of the Roma people, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)