TY - JOUR AU - Illuzzi, Jennifer PY - 2020/10/19 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Continuities and Discontinuities: Antiziganism in Germany and Italy (1900-1938) JF - Sociología Histórica JA - Soci Histo VL - IS - 10 SE - Monográfico DO - 10.6018/sh.451181 UR - https://revistas.um.es/sh/article/view/451181 SP - 51-80 AB - <p class="p1">In both Germany and Italy before WWI, populations labelled as Gypsies found&nbsp;themselves in a “state of exception” which aimed at their elimination from the&nbsp;nation-state by targeting them with policies emanating from the executive. Both&nbsp;states adhered to the liberal idea of equality before the law, but used the&nbsp;flexibility provided by executive authority to pressure Gypsies to leave the state.&nbsp;</p><p class="p1">After WWI, both Germany and Italy were forced to retain “Gypsies” inside the&nbsp;state as a result of changing geopolitical circumstances. However, in fascist Italy&nbsp;before WWII, executive authorities continued to operate in a “state of&nbsp;exception” and ceased adhering to the rule of law, interning Gypsies in&nbsp;concentration camps and seeking to eliminate them through forced assimilation.&nbsp;In Weimar Germany, legislative policies sought to eliminate Gypsies through&nbsp;bringing them <span class="s1">inside </span>of the law. The contradiction between increasingly&nbsp;racialized notion of Gypsy inassimilability and forced assimilation’s inevitable&nbsp;failures certainly laid the groundwork for extreme measures in both places&nbsp;during WWII.</p> ER -