Pavel Baloun

Junior Fellow (10/2017–07/2018)

“Slaughter them all!” Collective Violence and the Dynamic of Anti-Gypsy Measures in Czechoslovakia Between 1918 and 1942

This project examines the processes of creation and implementation of anti-Gypsy measures in interwar Czechoslovakia and after the Nazi occupation of Czech lands in 1939. The analysis focusses on the ways in which various state authorities such as gendarmerie, municipalities, district offices, courts etc. dealt with the population labelled as Gypsies and conflicted over their status, while simultaneously exploring their agency and defensive strategies. Another intention is to trace the demands for a ‘solution of the Gypsy question’ in the 1930s in order to explore the dynamic of anti-Gypsy measures at the beginning of the Second World War in Czechoslovakia and the Nazi-occupied Czech lands along with their violent consequences.

Pavel Baloun is a Ph.D. candidate in Historical Anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague. He is currently collaborating with the Terezín Initiative Institute on the project Database of the Roma Holocaust Victims in Czech Lands.