Images of ‘Gypsies’ in old children's books

This article concerns a concise text of my book: 'Gypsies' in Nineteenth-century Children's Books, A Comparative Study of Four National Literary Traditions; Studia Imagologica 31; Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2022. This book is available open access on the Library of the Radboud University (and many others: see catalogue Worldcat). This article is in Dutch, because it focused on the Dutch stiuation and pays special attention to Dutch literature and the position of the Roma and Sinti in The Netherlands and also (governmental) discrimination of these people who suffered ages of prejudices and discrimination all over Europe, culminating in the 'porrajmos' (the genocide as the Roma call the holocaust). Many years this suffering was more or less neglected because of the primary interest directed to the holocaust of the jews. But more than 500.000 Roma were murdered by the Nazis. This trauma still follows the Roma and also prejudices worded by 19th -century children's literature are vivid o the internet, such as the idea that 'gypsies' are thieves of children. The Children's literature of the 19th-century shows an intensification of the prejudices (in particular in German and French literature, but also in Victorian and Dutch), culminating in the first decades of the 20ieth century and still on  certain webites.