And the Violins Stopped Playing (1988) is a Polish/American historical drama film written, produced and directed by Alexander Ramati and based upon his biographical novel about an actual group of Romani people who were forced to flee from persecution by the Nazi regime at the height of the Porajmos (Romani holocaust), during World War II.

Plot

The story opens in 1941 in Warsaw, Poland, with Dymitr Mirga (Horst Buchholz), a prominent Romani violin player, entertaining a group of Germans—German military and SS officers—in a restaurant. The Germans enjoy the entertainment and assure the musicians that the ongoing removal of the region's Jews has nothing to do with the Romani because they are "Aryan" just like the Germans. Dymitr takes his family by train to Brest Litovsk as he is warned by an escapee from a concentration camp as to what is happening to Warsaw's Jews. The family joins a band of Romani on the outskirts of Brest-Litovsk. The local German commander visits the camp and tells the Romani that he is giving them the houses where the Jews lived who have been "re-located" (a euphemism for sending them to concentration camps). Dymitr immediately realizes the truth, and asks the head of the Romani community to lead its evacuation into Hungary, which at that time was still independent. The leader is reluctant to comply, and the community's council eventually forces him to resign, giving his position instead to Dymitr Mirga. The son of the deposed leader had been betrothed to a beautiful Romani named Zoya Natkin (Maya Ramati), who instead chose to marry Dymitr's son, Roman (Piotr Polk).