In the course of the First Balkan War, an independent Albanian nation state was proclaimed in the southern Albanian city of Vlora in 1912. This event was the result of the development of the Albanian national movement Rilindja [Rebirth] in the 19th century and the loss of political power by the Ottoman Empire in South-Eastern Europe, to which the territory of modern Albania had belonged for almost 500 years. However, sustainable statehood could only develop in Albania after World War I, because during the war the young state was occupied by various warring parties, despite its declared neutrality.
Roma have lived in the territory of the modern Albanian nation state for over 600 years. The area was also a place of refuge for Muslim Roma from other regions of South-Eastern Europe, especially from what is now Romania, where they were subject to persecution and slavery until the mid-nineteenth century.1Kolsti, Albanian Gypsies, 51 f.
Roma in the New Albanian Nation State
In Albania itself, little changed for Roma after the country gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. Social and political power structures from the time when Albania was on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire remained largely intact. Albanian post-imperial society was characterised by a high degree of continuity among the local elites. As in the days of the Ottoman Empire, products manufactured or traded by Roma were permitted on the markets. Christian Orthodox Roma, who were now part of the new, autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church, were also able to continue to receive all church sacraments without restriction. Interethnic marriages are also documented.
There were therefore processes of assimilation of Roma into the Albanian majority population or other minority groups. Nevertheless, there was also discrimination and exclusion of Roma. Muslim Roma, for example, were not welcome in mosques and cemeteries.2Ibid., 52 f. Discrimination against Roma intensified further during the 1920s and was the result of an ethnic-nationalist policy of homogenisation that was pursued to varying degrees at different levels of society and in all states of South-Eastern Europe at that time.3Schmitt, Der Balkan, 10 f.
The unsuccessful attempt by Ahmet Zogu (1895–1961), then Prime Minister of Albania, to ban public dancing by Romani people was an expression of this policy.4Kolsti, Albanian Gypsies, 52. However, drastic measures were also taken. In 1929, the Albanian Ministry of the Interior ordered that all Roma in the prefectures be registered, as they were allegedly destroying ‘public morality’. In this context, Roma living in Kavaja were expelled from the city. Previously, Roma had already been expelled from Shkodra.5Matache et al., The Roma Holocaust, 32, 54.
Under Italian Occupation, 1939–1943
Albania was occupied by Italy in April 1939, months before the outbreak of World War II. Although Albania formally remained an independent state, the country was now effectively under the control of the Fascist regime in Rome. The occupation of Albania was an essential element of Italy’s foreign policy ambitions. It was part of the plan to create a spazio vitale [living space], a territory of domination that would manifest Italian supremacy in the Mediterranean region and in which a Fascist civilisation was to be constructed.6On the conceptual history of the term spazio vitale, which differed from the National Socialist concept of Lebensraum, see Gentile, Fascismo, 198 f. Albania, the first European country occupied by Italy, thus became a starting point for further Fascist expansion in South-Eastern Europe.
During the Italian occupation of Albania, there was no systematic discrimination against or persecution of Roma, unlike in other Italian-occupied areas of South-Eastern Europe and in Italy itself.7Trevisan, La persecuzione. The Italian occupiers concentrated on establishing a Fascist society in Albania, envisioned as a part of a Fascist empire of the future, and sought to achieve political stability in the country. Roma were simply not perceived as a security problem that could stand in the way of this goal. They were considered a small and insignificant part of the population as a whole, even though their proportion increased slightly as a result of refugee movements from Yugoslavia, which was attacked by Germany in 1941.8Polansky, One Blood, One Flame, 423–40, 459–66.
In addition, the Italian occupying forces sometimes had difficulty distinguishing Roma from the rest of the population. This reflected partial assimilation into the Albanian majority society or other minority groups, the centuries of harsh living conditions that they shared with many others, especially in rural areas, the variety of languages and dialects spoken, and the religious diversity of the country.9Kolsti, Albanian Gypsies, 54 f. The absence of systematic persecution of Roma in Albania was therefore a consequence of the political distribution of resources by the Italian occupiers, who had other priorities, as well as of a certain inability to enforce antigypsy measures.
However, the absence of systematic persecution during the Italian occupation did not mean that Roma were not still subject to discrimination and exclusion. They remained a highly marginalised group in Albanian society. People who were identified as Roma by the Italian occupying forces were stereotyped as ‘Zingaro’ [‘Gypsies’].10Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS) [Central State Archives], Uffici Giudiziari Militari [Military Judicial Authorities], Tribunali Militari di Guerra e Tribunali Militari Territoriali di Guerra [Military War Tribunals and Territorial Military War Tribunals], Albania (1939–1943), Sentenze 1939–1943, b. 5. Furthermore, during the occupation, Albania, like other occupied societies, was significantly marked by violence, and it was not only the Italian occupiers who acted violently. Rather, the occupation gave rise to new opportunities for violence, in which sections of the occupied population also took part.11Tönsmeyer, “Besatzungsgesellschaften.”
In Albania, violence increased particularly from 1942 onwards, as military resistance to the occupation grew. In an interview published in 2008, Darinka Sejdović, a Romani woman who was twelve years old at the time and had fled from Montenegro to northern Albania with her siblings, described the Albanian Balli Kombëtar [National Front]—a political organisation that maintained its own fighting groups—as ‘troublemakers’.12Polansky, One Blood, One Flame, 464.
However, Roma were not only victims of discrimination, exclusion and, in some cases, physical violence. They were also actors who tried to assert their specific interests or simply to survive under the difficult living conditions in occupied Albania. There is evidence that Roma also joined the partisan groups.13Osmanaj, The Roma Community, 230.
Under German Occupation, 1943–1944
After the deposition of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), the new Italian government under Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956) concluded an armistice with the Allies, and Italy withdrew from its alliance with the German Reich. Subsequently, the Wehrmacht occupied large parts of Italy, including areas that had previously been under Italian occupation. Albania also came under German occupation in September 1943.
As before, there was no systematic persecution and murder of Romani people in Albania, as the German occupying forces also had other priorities. The German Reich came under increasing military pressure on all fronts, and the few German troops stationed in Albania were mainly occupied with securing the country militarily. The absence of systematic persecution therefore reflected a lack of capacity and the short duration of the German occupation, which lasted only a little over a year.14Kolsti, Albanian Gypsies, 55 f.
It cannot therefore be assumed that the National Socialist policy of persecution and extermination was deliberately avoided or suspended for Albania. On the contrary, in areas of South-Eastern Europe where the German occupation lasted longer, or where puppet regimes that cooperated closely with the German Reich had already been established (such as in present-day Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina), Roma were subjected to widespread persecution and murder. In northern Kosovo, which had been occupied by German troops since 1941, Roma were also victims of expropriation, persecution and forced labour.15Kenrick and Puxon, Sinti und Roma, 92. In Albania, by contrast, the German occupiers simply lacked the resources and time to implement their genocidal policy.
Similar factors also account for the fact that there was no systematic persecution and murder of Jews in Albania. The very limited cooperation between the Albanian authorities and the occupiers on this issue, relatively broad support among the Albanian civilian population for hiding Jews, and the German occupiers’ lack of resources prevented this from happening.16Heim et al., Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, 78, 85–88. Albania thus became a place of refuge for many Jews, but also for Roma, protecting them from persecution and differing greatly in this respect from other countries and regions in South-Eastern Europe. However, it must be emphasised that the situation of Roma in Albania during World War II in particular remains poorly researched. This reflects not least the fact that Roma in Albania were and continue to be a socially marginalised group.
From Communist Dictatorship to the Present Day
After the withdrawal of German troops, the Communist Party of Albania seized power and dominated the country’s politics until 1991. Under the communist dictatorship, the lives of Roma were characterised by a certain degree of social advancement and an improvement in living standards on the one hand, and enormous political and social pressure to conform on the other. The communist regime’s goal of full employment for the working population created opportunities for Roma to engage in secure gainful employment that had never existed before in Albania. Roma worked in agriculture, construction, public administration and skilled trades.17Osmanaj, The Roma Community, 230.
At the same time, any cultural differences from the Albanian majority society were deliberately suppressed. The Albanian government pursued a policy of complete assimilation of Roma into a society based on absolute socio-cultural equality. Contrary to what had been promised, the regime did not recognise the Albanian Roma as a national minority. The possibility of learning Romanes in schools or being taught in Romanes also remained an empty promise.18Kolsti, Albanian Gypsies, 56 ff.
Despite this intense pressure to assimilate, Roma managed to preserve their language and cultural identities in private. However, there were no opportunities for social participation. As a result, during the communist dictatorship, no public culture of remembrance emerged that addressed the situation of Roma before and, above all, during World War II. In communist Albania, the memory of World War II was dominated by a historical glorification of the armed resistance against the occupiers, the so-called national liberation struggle. This official culture of remembrance provided the communist regime with the central basis for legitimising the establishment of a Stalinist dictatorship aimed at national homogeneity.19Kera, Rethinking the Place of the Second World War, 364–374. Stories of exclusion and discrimination, but also of Romani participation in the resistance, did not fit into this narrative and remained untold.
The transition from a communist to a capitalist society in the 1990s led to a significant decline in social status and even extreme poverty for many Roma. A lower level of education than the average for the population as a whole, but above all discrimination and the collapse of state-owned industrial and agricultural enterprises led to high unemployment. Roma remain the economically weakest and most socially marginalised group in Albania.
However, the democratisation of society also created opportunities for political and cultural self-organisation, which led to the establishment of organisations and social initiatives that championed the rights, social equality and cultural self-determination of Roma. It is largely thanks to this self-organisation of Roma that the country’s culture of remembrance of World War II is gradually being expanded to include the perspectives of Roma—although it remains strongly oriented towards narratives of a nationally homogeneous Albanian majority society.
In 2018, on the initiative of Klaudia Veizaj and with the support of Roma Versitas Albania, a mural was created on a house wall in Tirana to commemorate the resistance of Roma against the Italian and German occupiers.20https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1445253458910278&type=3 [accessed: 18/11/2025]. The social emancipation of Albanian Roma is largely driven by the community itself. Although Roma have been officially recognised as a national minority by the Albanian state since 2017, they still lack representation in culture, academia and scholarship, politics and administration.
