Roma and Travellers in Sweden during World War II : Registration, experts and racial cleansing policy-making in a transnational context: Working paper presented at the 2016 Nordic Conference on Romani Studies, Södertörn University

On September 23, 2013, the leading Swedish daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, published a front-page story revealing that a classified listing of Roma had been found on a server belonging to the regional police of Skåne. The illegal database comprised a register of 4,029 persons of Romani descent, more than 1,000 of whom were children living all over Sweden. This news understandably elicited horrified reactions in Sweden and throughout the world. But how exceptional is the concept of such a register to Sweden? To answer this question, we must examine Sweden’s treatment of Romani people during World War II