of violence against Gypsies before the Nazis took power, with a special focus on the laws adopted in Bavaria and some other German Länder at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, showing the continuity between the last year of the Weimar Republic and the first years of Nazi regime. In a section entitled "Roots of Hostility", Lewy argues that the main reason of the persecution against Gypsies before 1933 was prejudice. Though Gypsies are not a violent people, he adds that prejudice is not always the single reason; the misbehavior of a minority among nomadic Gypsies contributed also to hostility and prejudices. The book was praised by Saul Friedländer, who called it "a work of great compassion and exemplary scholarship". According to Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, "Lewy's account of Nazi measures against the powerless Gypsies is unsurpassed in the English language." Henriette Asséo, lecturer at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, specialist of Gypsy history, wrote that Lewy's book "requires humility, giving a new, considerable documentation", adding, however, that the rejection of "genocide" label can be "discussed" Hans Mommsen agreed completely with Lewy, including with the rejection of "genocide" qualification. Peter Black states that "this book is a well-documented history of Nazi persecution of the German and Austrian Gypsies. Yet Lewy wastes considerable intellectual energy in demonstrating that the totality of the disaster that befell the Gypsies cannot be compared to the Jewish Holocaust. This leads him to a few questionable conclusions." The book was criticized by Norman G. Finkelstein who wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: Lewy's argument goes like this: Gypsies were as ruthlessly slaughtered by the Einsatzgruppen as the Jews, but only because they were suspected of spying; Gypsies were deported to Auschwitz like the Jews, but only "to get rid of them, not to kill them;" Gypsies were gassed at Chelmno like the Jews, but only because they had contracted typhus; most of the few remaining Gypsies were sterilized like the Jews, not however to prevent their propagation but only to "prevent contamination of 'German blood. The book has also been singled out for criticism, particularly by Romani scholars, who believe that it blames the Roma people for their own massacre. Lewy's work has been criticized for being "one-sided" and as a text which "overstates" the differences of the persecution of Jews and the persecution of