ROMA GYPSIES OF WORLD

The first period, from 1420 to about 1750, began when a small group of wandering people appeared in the Netherlands. They said they were pilgrims from "Little Egypt" and were soon called Egyptenaren (Egyptians) and heidens (heathens).

In the beginning they were received reasonably hospitably. This attitude changed around 1500 when government policy toward them became increasingly repressive. They were accused of being spies for the Turks and were prohibited from dwelling in the Netherlands, as well as in surrounding countries. Heidens caught by the authorities were to be punished and banned. Their sheer presence was enough for persecution. This policy was also motivated by accusations that they troubled the population by begging, stealing, and fraud. Toward the end of the seventeenth century the persecution intensified, resulting in their being driven to criminal acts. By then the authorities had become overtly violent and in some provinces a reward was offered for every heiden, dead or alive. As a reaction to their outlaw status, the Gypsies formed gangs and their crimes became more and more serious. This escalation of violence ended in an attempt at extermination. Those who escaped went into hiding or fled to surrounding countries, such as Germany and France.

The second period, from 1750 to 1868, was one during which the authorities were convinced that there were no longer any heidens living in the Netherlands and therefore did not maintain any specific policy regarding them. The negative image of the group, however, was kept alive by diverse sources and the memory of the "stealing and murdering heidens" remained.

The third period, from 1868 to the present, began when Hungarian coppersmiths (also called Kaldarash) and Bosnian bear leaders (Ursari) and their families entered the country in 1868 and the government reacted negatively. The foreigners were immediately "recognized" as heidens, a term soon replaced by the new label "Zigeuners" (Gypsies).

The Kaldarash and Ursari were thought to possess the same vices as their presumed predecessors, the heidens. The stereotypes of the authorities were so deeply rooted that, although the Hungarian coppersmiths and Bosnian bear leaders were self-sufficient and appreciated by the population for their skills and services, the central government defined them as unwanted aliens.

The military police, among whose duties was the guarding of the borders, was instructed to remove all Zigeuners as soon as possible. Most of the Kaldarash and Ursari were, however, only passing through, on their way to the United States. After the turn of the century they appeared only sporadically.

From 1900 onward their place was taken by the Lowara, a subgroup of the Kaldarash, who had changed their profession to horse dealing and who had managed to obtain German, French, and Norwegian passports. The Lowara were not immediately "recognized" as Gypsies, since they did not conform to the dominating "Hungarian image." Although they earned enough money through horse dealing, the central authorities nevertheless looked upon them as parasites. Contrary to the Kaldarash and Ursari, the horse dealers settled in the Netherlands and succeeded in obtaining a firm footing with the cooperation of municipal authorities. After some time (around 1930) the "Hungarian image" faded in importance and the Lowara were definitely regarded as Gypsies.

At the same time a fourth group, the Sinti, specialists in music and other forms of amusement, were also labeled as Gypsies. They appeared to have been living for generations in the Netherlands already, but up to that time they were not regarded as Gypsies.

In the 1930s the anti-Gypsy policy was intensified and many Lowara and Sinti were registered as such. This made it easy for the Dutch authorities to pick them up during World War II and deliver them to the Nazis. Because of their presumed race, 245 of them were finally sent to Auschwitz. Only 30 of them survived. Together with family members who managed to go into hiding they returned to the caravan sites after the war and tried to continue their way of life. This became more and more difficult as the government encouraged a sedentary life-style and discouraged free traveling. Moreover, the recollection of the cooperation of Dutch authorities at the time of the Nazi raids in 1944 greatly increased their isolation from Dutch society.

We know very little about the history of Dutch caravan dwellers. People began to live in caravans for the first time around 1880. Some of them did so because that type of dwelling made it easier to practice their ambulant professions, such as basket making, knife grinding, and chair mending; others ended up in caravans because of a housing shortage. In general they travelled within a limited region. During the twentieth century they have become a distinct sub-cultural group in the lower strata of Dutch society.

Roma in Norway

Norway

"There probably does not exist any other group against which Norwegians harbour more prejudice," says Balder Hasvoll, the Romani Minority Adviser to the Norwegian capital of Oslo. News server Romea.cz is interviewing him in Czech, as he has both studied and worked in the Czech Republic.

We discussed the life of Romani people in Norway at his office, during a visit to the home of his Romani colleagues, while travelling through the city, at various meetings he accompanied us to, and also at a unique exhibition about the indigenous Norwegian Roma in the city museum. In addition to the Romani people who have lived throughout Scandinavia since the 16th century, the so-called "Tatere" - Travellers, whose number is estimated at about 10 000 people, there are two more distinct Romani worlds living side-by-side in Norway.

One is the group of "indigenous" Norwegian Roma, and the other is a community of Romani immigrants from the Balkans, primarily from Bulgaria, Romania, and what was once Yugoslavia. The indigenous group are Vlach Roma who have lived in Norway for almost 150 years and are now a community of roughly 500 - 700 people.

The Romani immigrant community is larger, estimated at 2 000. They began arriving in the country about eight years ago.

We're all the same to them

Romani people were not recognized as one of Norway's five national minorities until 1999. In 2008 the term "Roma" was officially recognized instead of the previous official term, "Gypsies".

Today some Norwegian Roma are referred to as integrated, while others grapple with considerable problems. "Many Norwegian Roma do not know how to read or write well, some have no idea how the local authorities work and have problems with discrimination," Hasvoll tells us.

Some Norwegian Roma also travel frequently, a way of life that influences their children's school attendance by delaying their return to instruction after breaks and requiring them to switch schools. Romani mediator Robert Lorentsen, a colleague of Hasvoll's, also encounters Romani children being removed from their families.

"What happens is that teachers misinterpret things the children talk about, they don't understand how Romani culture works, and instead of seeking an explanation, they immediately begin negotiating with the social welfare authorities. I was involved, for example, in a case where the teacher heard the children discuss arranging marriages, so she called the social welfare department and managed to get the children taken away from the family for several weeks. Ultimately it was proven that no marriages were being arranged, that the children were just pretending when they were talking to each other. They were returned to their family - all that was achieved was enormous stress generated by their being separated from their parents," Lorentsen said.

The Romani community itself is not completely homogeneous or unified - in Oslo, for example, there are several Romani "mafia" groups who practice extortion and violence against their own. "The police won't protect you because they cannot distinguish who is the assailant and who is the victim, we're all the same to them. They say we should settle our problems ourselves - many times they won't even respond when called for help," Lorentsen says.

An exhibition about Roma without them

Doubts as to the Roma receiving backup from the state could also be recognized in parts of an exhibition on the Norwegian Roma at the Museum in Oslo called "Norvegiska romá - norske sigøynere“ (Norwegian Roma - Norwegian Gypsies). "No one listens to what we are saying - they just do their thing according to their own ideas. It's not a real dialogue," the tags to the exhibition items explain.

"Why are Romani people so sceptical about various state projects?" one sign asks another. "Because they don't take us seriously," reads the answer.

"The exhibition shows the life of the indigenous Norwegian Romani people both in history and today, more or less through a Romani perspective - the curators conducted many interviews with various Romani people and created archives of news reports from the print media, radio and television," Hasvoll says. However, even the exhibition itself has not avoided a sceptical reception.

"The curators of the exhibition promised that they did not want to do an exhibition about Romani people without them. They wanted to involve Roma as docents, because they are the best-placed to say something about their history and situation. However, in the final result that did not happen at all, evidently due to a lack of financing," Hasvoll says.

What is good and what is evil

Robert Lorentsen and his wife Maria Flamros, a Romani woman originally from Slovakia, run a drop-in club for children and youth in Oslo. "We dance with the children, we are learning Norwegian and Spanish, we read, we sew and we sing. We also spend time with older children and youth after school so they can get to know the city and its surroundings, so they can get a driver's license, so they can participate in various recreational activities," explains Flamros.

She is currently putting together a little book of fairy tales for children and is planning another book. Together with the children and a pastor, they are also planning to record a CD of songs that will help people recognize what is good and what is evil.

"Nobody knows [the difference between good and evil]," she says with a smile. When asked how Norwegian Roma get along with those who have come to Norway from the Balkans, she says, "I have regard and respect for everyone, their origin doesn't matter."

"Everyone must respect one another. When I run into such people, I give them money if I have some. Some claim they are wealthy beggars, some are really angry with them and want them to disappear, to not be here anymore. In my opinion that's a bad thing - they're people too, after all," she says.

Roma from the Balkans

These people sit on the streets of Oslo, wrapped up in coats and shawls, alone or in small groups, holding paper cups and waiting for passers-by to give them spare change. Some call them immigrants fleeing poverty, others say they are a community with a business plan of begging and stealing.

Their way of life on the streets is sparking great emotion in the majority society. This summer the Norwegian Parliament also debated the issue, and if MPs approve a ban on begging in public spaces, those who violate it will face fines and up to three months in prison.

The promoters of the ban include Norwegian Justice Minister Anders Anundsen, who claims that begging is directly linked to crime, especially pick pocketing. Critics of the law say it does not target begging, but the Roma themselves, and is striving to indirectly restrict immigration to the country.

Norwegian Roma

The history of the indigenous Norwegian Roma has not been a bed of roses. The forebears of today's Vlach generation came to Norway around 1880.

In 1927 Norway adopted an immigration law with a special paragraph banning Romani people from entering the country. Seven years later, in 1934, a group of 68 Norwegian Roma were not permitted to re-enter the country.

That refusal launched a series of events that had fatal consequences for them. Only 12 of the people in that group survived WWII.

Testimonies about the "Porajmos" - the Romani Holocaust - have been captured, for example, in audio recordings of survivors Miloš Karoli and Frans Josef telling about the horrors they experienced; such testimonies were also featured in the exhibition about Norwegian Roma in Oslo. "The 'Gypsy paragraph' of that law was abolished in 1956 after a big wave of criticism from abroad and at home," Hasvoll says.

In practice, however, the treatment of Romani people did not improve. In 1972, for example, Norway deported 30 Romani people to Denmark whose citizenship could not be proven.

Integration efforts and the "big swindle"

At the start of the 1960s, many Romani people in Norway lived in caravans and tents even during the winter. "They lived in terrible conditions, the Norwegians used to go look at them as if they were animals in a zoo, it was something exotic for them," Hasvoll said.

The situation was unsustainable, so the Norwegian Government offered housing to the Romani families. This effort at aid, however, lacked any dialogue with the Roma themselves, and it soon turned out that adapting to a new way of life was not at all easy for them.

The first step forward in 1972 was accompanied by a systematic integration campaign in Oslo that endeavoured to help Romani people with education, employment and permanent residency and to ensure their equal access to health care and social services. One year later, the Government Office for Roma Affairs was created.

In 1989, the members of a particular Romani family became involved in a big fraud scheme with diamonds. "The big swindle", as it began to be called, is one of the biggest fraud cases in Norwegian history.

The case had such a deep impact on the life of Norwegian Roma that its repercussions are basically felt up to this day. The shadow of the members of the Karoli clan, who participated in the fraud, still fall on the entire Romani minority in Norway.

Some believe the fraud was even a deciding factor in the closure of all government care for Roma in 1991. "After the big swindle, ordinary people's perceptions of Roma greatly changed. The members of that family, the brothers and sons of those who were actually involved, even changed their names," Hasvoll says.

"Probably there is no other group against which Norwegians have greater prejudice. As a minority they are very well-known, thanks to the diamond fraud, and ever since, most of the majority population believes that all Roma are like that," he says.

Roma in Poland

Poland

'Romani people in Poland (Polish: Romowie, commonly known as Cyganie Gypsies) are one of Poland's recognized ethnic minorities.

According to the Polish census of 2011, 17049 people in Poland declared themselves as Romani people The recorded history of the Romani people in Poland dates to the 15th century.

Major ethnic subgroups of Romani people in Poland are: the Polska Roma, the Bergitka (Carpathian) Roma, Kalderash and Lovari.

Polska Roma

Polska Roma are the largest and one of the oldest ethnolinguistic sub group of Romani people living in Poland, for example. Some Polska Roma also live in North America, Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain and countries of the European Union. The term "Polska Roma" is both an ethnonym of the group and a term used in the academic literature. As such it is distinct from the terms "Polish Roma" or "Roma in Poland" which better denote the broader Roma population in Poland. Polish ethnographer Jerzy Ficowski, writing in the 1950s and 1960s used the term "Polish Lowlander Gypsies" (Polish: Polscy Cyganie Nizinni) to refer to the same group, though this terminology is no longer in widespread use.

Culture

Polska Roma were nomadic until the twentieth century. They have not assimilated into broader Polish society, or the non-Romani cultures of other countries where they live. They are in fact one of the most traditional Romani groups. One exception to this is that the most common surnames among Polska Roma are characteristically Polish (for example Kwiatkowski or Majewski), or occasionally Polonized-German (for example Wajs or Szwarc). Polska Roma generally have had a very strict interpretation of Romanipen cultural laws and practices. Some cultural differences arose however within the community during and after World War II because those of the Polska Roma who spent the war in areas controlled by the Soviet Union were able to hold on to orthodox practice, while those under German occupation and threatened by genocide had to compromise the strictness of their traditions in order to survive.

They are closely related to Xaladitka Roma, or "Ruska Roma" who emigrated to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth together with the Polska Roma. Because the Xaladitka settled in regions of present-day Belarus, they became more affected by Ruthenian, rather than Polish, culture.

History

Origins

Polska Roma as a distinct ethnolinguistic group formed during the 16th century in western Poland from Roma refugees who had migrated to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in order to escape anti-Romani persecution in the Holy Roman Empire.

The migration was a result of a wave of pogroms, persecutions and anti-Romani laws in German territories and this had a profound effect on Polska Roma culture and language. Compared to other Roma groups, such as the Bergitka Roma (Polish Carpathian Gypsies or Polish Highlander Gypsies in Ficowski's terminology) who had actually arrived in Poland earlier in the 15th century, the communities of Polska Roma are more closed and suspicious of outsiders (Gadjo), less "assimilated", and more tied to traditional Roma culture. Their version of the Roma dialect has also incorporated many German words and idioms.

In the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, like other European states, passed anti-Roma legislation. However, unlike in most European countries, these laws were rarely enforced in large measure because the Roma found powerful protectors among the Szlachta (Polish nobility) and benign neglect. Polish nobles, magnates and landowners, placed a high value on the traditional crafts of the Roma, such as metallurgy, farming, and wheelwrighting, as well musical skills (which became a standard staple of important occasions), the Polska Roma were usually exempted from the feudal restrictions that tied Polish peasants to the land. They were free to continue the nomadic lifestyle during most of the year, as long as they arrived in the "home town" on pre-specified market days. In that respect, the Polska Roma occupied social strata above that of the Polish peasants and other Roma populations, such as the Carpathian Roma (whose mobility was restricted).

In many large magnate latifundia, the communities of Polska Roma were also given the right to have a "king," chosen to represent them in legal disputes with outsiders. However, over time, the office became a source of corruption. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the persons were often chosen from outside their group and tended to pursue personal rather than community interests.

Additional anti-Roma laws were passed in Poland and Lithuania when Augustus the Strong, the Elector of Saxony, was elected king of Poland in 1697. Saxony, like most German states of the time had very strong anti-Roma legislation (Roma men were to be killed on sight, often with a bounty paid for their ears, while Roma women and children were disfigured, branded and banished) and upon Augustus' inauguration some of these laws were transferred to the Commonwealth. However, a distinction was made between the laws applicable in Augustus' home state of Saxony and the Commonwealth proper, where the most severe measures were mitigated into monetary fines or simply benign neglect of local authorities.

Shortly before the Partitions of Poland, Polska Roma, like other non-szlachta classes, were granted full citizenship by the Constitution of 3rd May. However, these privileges were lost with the partitions and the Polska Roma were forced back into servile status by the foreign powers (Austria, Prussia, Russia).

During the Polish partitions

After Poland's partitions, the persecution of Polska Roma became more severe, particularly in the Russian partition. As a result, the group's population's size declined, at one point falling to as low as 1000 persons within Congress Poland. Another reason for the overall decline was that within the Prussian partition part of the group developed an identity, under the influence of German culture, distinct from those of other Polska Roma and subsequently became the Sasytka Roma. Finally, the 19th century saw an influx of other Romani into the territories of former Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, particularly the Kalderash and Lovari. These groups competed economically against the Polska Roma within their traditional crafts and, in many places, successfully displaced them in terms of employment.

Interwar Poland

After Poland regained its independence, Polish authorities tended to recognize the Kalderash as the overall representatives of the Roma population in the country. Consequently, the "gypsy kings" during this period were chosen from among the Kalderash, and policy generally reflected this group's interests, often at the expense of the Polska Roma. Like most other Romani sub-groups within Poland who were not Kalderash, the latter did not recognize the authority of these representatives and did their best to ignore or circumvent it.

Porajmos

After the German invasion and occupation of Poland the Nazis carried out a planned genocide of the Roma population as part of the final solution. Polska Roma, along with other Romani groups in Poland were very much affected. Generally, while other Roma were usually placed in ghettos and then sent to Nazi concentration camps, the German SS usually murdered Polska Roma (as well as the Bergitka Roma) in mass executions in forests and secluded places (for example in the Szczurowa massacre).

After World War II

While prior to World War II a small portion of Polska Roma had become sedentary, most continued a traditional nomadic way of life. Unlike the Lovarii and Kalderash, who often engaged in cross-national Europe wide travels, Polska Roma tended to stay within the borders of interwar Poland or neighbouring countries.

After the war however, the communist government of People's Poland instituted a policy aimed at the "settling" of the Roma population which had survived the Holocaust. Initially, this took the form of financial incentives - including free housing and "settlement funds" - but because the policy did not achieve the goals, the communist authorities hoped for, by the late 1950s the policy evolved into one of forced settlement and outright prohibitions against the "nomadic" lifestyle. All Polska Roma had to register, "vagrancy" was outlawed, and Roma's parents were often jailed if their children failed to attend the same school throughout the year (which was impossible in the context of a nomadic lifestyle). This forced policy resulted in about 80% of the previously nomadic Roma becoming settled, while a portion of the remainder went underground. Still, others emigrated abroad.

The Polska Roma poet Papusza (Bronisława Wajs) became nationally renowned during this period, as did her nephew, Edward Dębicki.

Polska Roma today

Currently, Polska Roma live mostly in southeastern Poland, in the area around Nowy Sącz, in Podhale and Spisz.

In June 1991 the Mława riot occurred, which was a series of violent incidents against Polska Roma that broke out after one Polish man was killed and another Polish man was permanently harmed when a Romani teenager drove into three ethnic Poles in a crosswalk, killing one, then left the scene of the accident. After the accident a rioting mob attacked wealthy Romani settlements in the Polish town of Mława. Both the Mława police chief and University of Warsaw sociology researchers said that the pogrom was primarily due to class envy (some Romani have grown wealthy in the gold and automobile trades). At the time, the mayor of the town, as well as the Romani involved and other residents said the incident was primarily racially motivated.

During the coverage of the riot, a change in ethnic stereotypes about Roma in Poland was mentioned: A Roma is no longer poor, dirty, or cheerful. They also do not beg or pretend to be lowly. Nowadays a Roma drives a high status car, lives in a fancy mansion, flaunts his wealth, brags that the local authorities and the police are on his pay and thus he is not afraid of anybody. At the same time he is, as before, a swindler, a thief, a hustler, a dodger of military service and a holder of a legal, decent job. Negative "meta-stereotypes" – or the Romas' own perceptions regarding the stereotypes that members of the dominant groups hold about their own group – were described by the Polish Roma Society in an attempt to intensify the dialogue about exclusionism.

Roma in Portugal

Portugal

The Romani people in Portugal are known by non-Romani ethnic Portuguese as ciganos (Portuguese pronunciation: [siˈɣɐnuʃ]), but are also alternatively known as calés, calós, and boémios.

As implied by some of their most common local names, the native Portuguese Romani belong to the Iberian Kale (Kalos) group, like most of the fellow Lusophone Brazilian ciganos, and the Spanish Romani people, known as gitanos, that share their same ethnic group. Their presence in the country in and around the state of minho goes back to the second half of the 15th century when they crossed the border from neighbouring Spain. Early on, due to their sociocultural differences, race and nomadic lifestyle, the ciganos were the object of fierce discrimination and persecution. The number of Romani people in Portugal is difficult to estimate, since it is forbidden to collect statistics about race or ethnic categories in the country. According to data from Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance there are about 40,000 to 50,000 spread all over the country. According to the Portuguese branch of Amnesty International, there are about 30,000 to 50,000.

Legal status

After the first Romani arrived in Portugal in the turn of the 15th to the 16th century and over the following centuries there were several laws passed marginalizing the ciganos. From the early 16th century until the early 19th century, they were forbidden from entering and expelled from the country, forced into exile in the colonies, used as forced labour in the sailing ships and forbidden from using their language and traditional attire and from performing fortune telling:

By King John III in 1526 and 1538;
By Queen Catherine, while regent, in 1557;
By King Sebastian in 1573;
By King Henry in 1579;
By King Philip I in 1592 and in his Philippine Ordinations, a legal code put together in the late 16th and the early 17th century;
By King Philip II in 1606, 1613, 1614 and 1618;
By King John IV in 1647, 1650 and 1654;
By King Peter II in 1689;
By King John V in 1707, 1708, 1718 and 1745;
By King Joseph I in 1751 and 1756;
By Queen Mary I in 1800.

Only with the Liberal Constitution of 1822 were the Romani recognised as Portuguese citizens. From 1920 to 1985, the statute of the Portuguese gendarmerie (Guarda Nacional Republicana) determined that this military force should carry out special monitoring of the gypsy communities. Since 1985, the statute reads "nomads" instead of "gypsies" to avoid accusations of discrimination based on ethnicity.

In the last decade, a few governmental programmes to promote gypsy integration were launched, starting in 2013, when the Government passed the National Strategy for the Integration of the Gypsy Communities.

Roma in Romania

Romania

Romani people (Roma; Romi, traditionally Țigani, "Gypsies") constitute one of Romania's largest minorities. According to the 2011 census, their number was 621,000 people or 3.3% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians. There are different estimates about the size of the total population of people with Romani ancestry in Romania, varying from 4.6 percent to over 10 percent of the population, because many people of Romani descent do not declare themselves Roma.

Origins

The Romani people originate from northern India, presumably from the north western Indian regions such as Rajasthan and Punjab. The linguistic evidence has indisputably shown that roots of Romani language lie in India: the language has grammatical characteristics of Indian languages and shares with them a big part of the basic lexicon, for example, body parts or daily routines. More exactly, Romani shares the basic lexicon with Hindi and Punjabi. It shares many phonetic features with Marwari, while its grammar is closest to Bengali.

Genetic findings in 2012 suggest the Romani originated in north western India and migrated as a group. According to a genetic study in 2012, the ancestors of present scheduled tribes and scheduled caste populations of northern India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the likely ancestral populations of modern European Roma. In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External Affairs stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India. The conference ended with a recommendation to the Government of India to recognize the Roma community spread across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora.

Terminology

Further information: Names of the Romani people

In Romani, the native language of the Romani, the word for people is pronounced [ˈroma] or [ˈʀoma] depending on dialect ([ˈrom] or [ˈʀom] in the singular). Starting from the 1990s, the word has also been officially used in the Romanian language, although it has been used by Romani activists in Romania as far back as 1933. There are two spellings of the word in Romanian: rom (plural romi), and rrom (plural rromi). The first spelling is preferred by the majority of Romani NGOs and it is the only spelling accepted in Romanian Academy's Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române. The two forms reflect the fact that for some speakers of Romani there are two rhotic (ar-like) phonemes: /r/ and /ʀ/. In the government-sponsored (Courthiade) writing system /ʀ/ is spelt rr. The final i in rromi is the Romanian (not Romani) plural.

The traditional and colloquial Romanian name for Romani, is "țigani" (cognate with Serbian cigani, Hungarian cigány, Greek ατσίγγανοι (atsinganoi), French tsiganes, Portuguese ciganos, Dutch zigeuner, German Zigeuner, Turkish Çigan, Persian زرگری (zargari), Arabic غجري (ghajri), Italian zingari, Russian цыганский (tsiganskiy) and Kazakh Сыған/ســىــعــان(syǵan) ) Depending on context, the term may be considered to be pejorative in Romania.

In 2009–2010, a media campaign followed by a parliamentary initiative asked the Romanian Parliament to accept a proposal to revert the official name of country's Roma (adopted in 2000) to Țigan (Gypsy), the traditional and colloquial Romanian name for Romani, in order to avoid the possible confusion among the international community between the words Roma — which refers to the Romani ethnic minority — and Romania. The Romanian government supported the move on the grounds that many countries in the European Union use a variation of the word Țigan to refer to their Gypsy populations. The Romanian upper house, Senate, rejected the proposal.

History and integration

In combination with the Mongol invasion of Europe the first Romani had reached the territory of present-day Romania around the year 1241. At the beginning of the 14th century, when the Mongols withdrew from Eastern Europe, the Romani who were left were taken as prisoners and slaves. According to documents signed by Prince Dan I the first captured Romani in Wallachia dates back to year 1385.

In fact, the Romani people, and the Romani language, have their origin in northern India. The presence of the Roms within the territory of present-day Romania dates back to the 14th century. The population of Roms fluctuated depending on diverse historical and political events.

Before 1856

Until their liberation on February 20, 1856, most Roms lived in slavery. They could not leave the property of their owners (the boyars and the orthodox monasteries). Around the year 1850, about 102,000 Romani lived in the Danubian Principalities, comprising 2.7% of the population (90,000 or 4.1% in Wallachia and 12,000 or 0.8% in Moldavia).

Between 1856 and 1918

After their liberation in 1856, a significant number of Roms left Wallachia and Moldavia.

In 1886 the number of Roms was estimated at around 200,000, or 3.2% of Romania's population. The 1899 census counted around 210,806 "others", of whom roughly half (or 2% of the country's population) were Romani.

In Bessarabia, annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812, the Roms were liberated in 1861. Many of them migrated to other regions of the Empire, while important communities remained in Soroca, Otaci and the surroundings of Cetatea Albă, Chișinău, and Bălți.

Between 1918 and 1945

The 1918 union with Transylvania, Banat, Bukovina and Bessarabia increased the number of ethnic Romani in Romania.

The first census in interwar Romania took place in 1930; 242,656 persons (1.6%) were registered as Gypsies (țigani).

The territory lost in 1940 caused a drop in the number of Romani, leaving a high number especially in Southern Dobruja and Northern Transylvania.

During the Second World War, the Fascist regime of Ion Antonescu deported 25,000 Romani to Transnistria; of these, 11,000 died. In all, from the territory of present-day Romania (including Northern Transylvania), 36,000 Romani perished during that time.

During the communist regime and after 1989

The communist authorities have tried to integrate the Roma community, for example by building flats for them. Apart from the 1977 national campaign that confiscated all the gold (particularly jewelry) belonging to the Roma, there are few documents about the particular situation of this ethnic group during Ceaușescu's dictatorship.

Sometimes the authorities tried to cover up crimes related to racial hatred, so as not to raise the social tension. An example of this is the crime committed by a truck driver named Eugen Grigore, from Iași who, in 1974, to avenge the death of his wife and his three children caused by a group of Roma, drove his truck into a Roma camp, killing 24 people. This fact was made public only in the 2000s. After the fall of communism in Romania, there were many inter-ethnic conflicts targeting the Roma community, the most famous being the Hădăreni riots. Other important clashes against Roma happened, from 1989 to 2011, in Turulung, Vârghiș, Bolintin-Deal, Ogrezeni, Reghin, Cărpiniş, Găiseni, Plăieşii de Sus, Vălenii Lăpuşului, Racşa, Valea Largă, Apata, Sânmartin, Sâncrăieni and Racoş. During the June 1990 Mineriad, a group of protesters organized a pogrom in the Roma neighborhoods of Bucharest. According to the press, the raids resulted in the destruction of apartments and houses, beatings of men and assaults of women of Roma ethnicity. There have also often been many politicians who have made offensive statements against the Roma people, such as the president of that time Traian Băsescu, who, in 2007, called a Roma woman "stinky Gypsy". In November 2011, the mayor of the city of Baia Mare, Cătălin Cherecheș, decided to build a wall in a neighborhood inhabited by a Roma community. The national anti-discrimination council in 2020 fined him for not demolishing the wall.

A 2000 EU report about Romani said that in Romania… the continued high levels of discrimination are a serious concern.. and progress has been limited to programmes aimed at improving access to education. Various international institutions, such as the World Bank, the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), and the Open Society Institute (OSI) launched the 2005-2015 Decade for Roma Inclusion. To this, followed the EU Decade of Roma Inclusion to combat this and other problems. The integration of the Roma is made difficult also due to a great economic and social disparity; according to the 2002 census, Roma are the ethnic group with the highest percentage of illiteracy (25,6%), with only the Turkish minority having a similarly high percentage (23,7%).

Within the Romanian education system there is discrimination and segregation, which leads to higher drop-out rates and lower qualifications for the Romani students. The life expectancy of the Romani minority is also 10 years lower than the Romanian average.

The accession of Romania to the European Union in 2007 led many members of the Romani minority, the most socially disadvantaged ethnic group in Romania, to migrate en masse to various Western European countries (mostly to Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden) hoping to find a better life. The exact number of emigrants is unknown. In 2007 Florin Cioabă, an important leader of the Romani community (also known as the "King of all Gypsies") declared in an interview that he worried that Romania may lose its Romani minority. However, the next population census in 2011 showed a substantial rise in those recording Romani ethnicity.

The Pro Democrația association in Romania revealed that 94% of the questioned persons believe that the Romanian citizenship should be revoked to the ethnic Roms who commit crimes abroad. Another survey revealed that 68% of Romanians think that Roma people commit most crimes, 46% think that they are thieves, while 43% lazy and dirty, and 36% believe that the Roma community might become a threat to Romania. In another survey made in 2013 by IRES, 57% respondents stated that they generally don't trust people of Roma ancestry and only 17% said to have a Roma friend. Still, 57% said that this ethnic group is not discriminated in Romania, 59% claimed that the Roma should not receive help from the state, and that Roma people are poor because they don't like to work (72%) and that most of them are thugs (61%).

Religion

According to the 2002 census, 81.9% of Roma are Orthodox Christians, 6.4% Pentecostals, 3.8% Roman Catholics, 3% Reformed, 1.1% Greek Catholics, 0.9% Baptists, 0.8% Seventh-Day Adventists, while the rest belong to other religions such as (Islam and Lutheranism).

Cultural influence

Notable Romanian Romani musicians and bands include Grigoraş Dinicu, Johnny Răducanu, Ion Voicu, Taraf de Haïdouks and Connect-R.

The musical genre manele, a part of Romanian pop culture, is often sung by Romani singers in Romania and has been influenced in part by Romani music, but mostly by Oriental music brought in Romania from Turkey during the 19th century. Romanian public opinion about the subject varies from support to outright condemnation.

Self-proclaimed "Romani royalty"

The Romani community has:

An "Emperor of Roma from Everywhere", as Iulian Rădulescu proclaimed himself. In 1997, Iulian Rădulescu announced the creation of Cem Romengo – the first Rom state in Târgu Jiu, in southwest Romania. According to Rădulescu, "this state has a symbolic value and does not affect the sovereignty and unity of Romania. It does not have armed forces and does not have borders". According to the 2002 population census, in Târgu Jiu there are 96.79% Romanians (93,546 people), 3.01% (Romani) (2,916 people) and 0.20% others. A "King of Roma". In 1992, Ioan Cioabă proclaimed himself King of Roma at Horezu, "in front of more than 10,000 Rroms" (according to his son's declaration). His son, Florin Cioabă, succeeded him as king. An "International King of Roma". On August 31, 2003, according to a decree issued by Emperor Iulian, Ilie Stănescu was proclaimed king. The ceremony took place in Curtea de Argeş Cathedral, the Orthodox Church where Romania's Hohenzollern monarchs were crowned and are buried. Ilie Stănescu died in December, 2007.

Ruska Roma - Roma of Russia

Russia

The Ruska Roma (Russian: Руска́ Рома́), also known as Russian Gypsies (Russian: Русские цыгане) or Xaladitka Roma (Russian: Халадытка Рома, romanized: Khaladytka Roma, i.e. "Roma-Soldiers"), are the largest subgroup of Romani people in Russia and Belarus. Initially known as Ruska Roma, they live mostly in Russia and Belarus, but also in Eastern and Central Ukraine, France, Canada, and the United States.

The Ruska Romani language contains some German, Polish, and Russian words, as well as a small amount of Ukrainian and Russian grammar. Most Ruska Roma are Orthodox Christians, while those living in predominantly Muslim areas (such as the Caucasus) tend to be Muslim.

Ruska Roma in Russian history

Judging by the language of Russian Roma, their ancestors spent some time in Germany and Poland before coming to the East Slavic territories. The existing sources start mentioning Roma population on the territory of Russia since the beginning of the 18th century. For instance, the Scottish traveler John Bell writes about Roma people coming from Poland, sent away from the Tobolsk region in 1721.

Soon after their arrival in Russia, ancestors of Russian Roma became involved in entertainment, playing and singing at large celebrations. Since the 19th century, Russian Roma living in large cities such as Moscow and Saint Petersburg started creating Romani choirs, which soon became very popular among the Russian urban population. Nomadic Russian Roma were engaged in horse dealing and fortune telling.

A drastic change in the life of nomadic Russian Roma took place in 1956 when a special decree issued by the Soviet government banned Roma from leading a nomadic life. Russian Roma had to start living in houses permanently, although they are still more mobile than non-Roma population and can easily change their place of residence. Nowadays Russian Roma often live dispersed, but they do tend to look for a house or flat in the area where other Roma are also present. Russian Roma prefer to live in private houses, but it is not uncommon for a Russian Romani family to live in a flat.

Russian Roma are also one of the most educated Romani groups in Russia. Many Russian Roma work as lawyers, doctors and teachers. The number of Russian Roma receiving university-level education is constantly growing.

Although Russian Roma still prefer to marry within the Romani community, cases of mixed marriages with non-Romani partners are quite numerous.

Roma in Serbia

Serbia

Romani people, or Roma (Serbian: Роми, romanized: Romi), are the third largest ethnic group in Serbia, numbering 147,604 (2.1%) according to the 2011 census. However, due to a legacy of poor birth registration, as well as a fear of discrimination when reporting their identity to the census, this official number is likely underestimated. Estimates that correct for undercounting suggest that Serbia is one of countries with the most significant populations of Roma people in Europe at 250,000-500,000. Anywhere between 46,000 to 97,000 Roma are internally displaced from Kosovo after 1999.

Another name used for the community, often with a negative connotation, is Cigani (Serbian Cyrillic: Цигани). Several migrational waves of Romani people to Serbia are recorded from Romania, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are divided into numerous subgroups, with different, although related, Romani dialects and history. The community has produced several notable musicians.

Subgroups

Main sub-groups include "Turkish Gypsies" (Turski Cigani), "White Gypsies" (Beli Cigani), "Wallachian Gypsies" (Vlaški Cigani) and "Hungarian Gypsies" (Mađarski Cigani), as studied by scholar Tihomir Đorđević (1868–1944).

Wallachian Roma. Migrated from Romania, through Banat. They have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and mostly speak Serbian fluently. They are related to the Turkish Roma. T. Đorđević noted several sub-groups.
Turkish Roma, also known as Arlia. Migrated from Turkey. At the beginning of the 19th century the Turkish Roma lived mainly in southeastern Serbia, in what was the Sanjak of Niš. The Serbian government attempted to force Orthodoxy on them after the conquest of the sanjak (1878), but without particular success. They are mainly Muslims. T. Đorđević noted an internal division between old settlers and new settlers, who had differing traditions, speech, family organization and occupations.
- "White Gypsies", arrived later than other Romani groups, at the end of the 19th century, from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Permanently settled mostly in towns. Serbian-speakers. Sub-group of Turkish Roma. T. Đorđević noted them as living in Podrinje and Mačva, being Muslim, and that they had lost their language.
Hungarian Roma.

History

Romani, or "gypsies", arrived in Serbia in several waves. The first reference to gypsies in Serbia is found in a 1348 document, by which Serbian emperor Stefan Dušan donated some gypsy slaves to a monastery in Prizren (now in Kosovo). In the 15th century, Romani migrations from Hungary are mentioned.

In 1927, a Serbian-Romani humanitarian organization was founded. In 1928, a Romani singing society was founded in Niš. In 1932, a Romani football club was founded. In 1935, a Belgrade student established the first Romani magazine, Romani Lil, and in the same year a Belgrade Romani association was founded. In 1938, an educational organization of Yugoslav Romani was founded.

Culture

The Romani people in Central Serbia are predominantly Eastern Orthodox but a minority of Muslim Romani exists (notably recent refugees from Kosovo), mainly in the southern parts of Serbia. Romani people in multi-ethnic Vojvodina are integrated with other ethnic groups, especially with Serbs, Romanians and Hungarians. For this reason, depending of the group with which they are integrated, Romani are usually referred to as Serbian Romani, Romanian Romani, Hungarian Romani, etc.

The majority of Romani people are Christian and a minority are Muslim. They speak mainly Romani and Serbian. Some also speak the language of other people they have been influenced by: Romanian, Hungarian or Albanian. Đurđevdan (or Ederlezi) is a traditional feast day of Romani in Serbia. In October 2005 the first text on the grammar of the Romani language in Serbia was published by linguist Rajko Đurić, titled Gramatika e Rromane čhibaki - Граматика ромског језика.

Demographics

There are 147,604 Romani people in Serbia, but unofficial estimates put the figure up to 450,000-550,000. Between 23,000-100,000 Serbian Roma are internally displaced persons from Kosovo.

Discrimination

A large number of Serbian Roma people live in slums, and so-called "cardboard cities". Many Roma children never go to school. On 3 April 2009, a group of Romani people who had been living in an unlawful settlement in Novi Beograd were evicted on the orders of the mayor of Belgrade. According to the press, bulldozers accompanied by police officers arrived to clear the site early in the morning before the formal eviction notice was presented to the community. The makeshift dwellings were torn apart while their former occupants watched. The site was cleared in order to make way for an access road to the site of the 2009 Student Games, to be held in Belgrade later this year. Temporary alternative accommodation in the form of containers had apparently been provided by the Mayor of Belgrade, but some 50 residents of the suburb where they had been located attempted to set fire to three of the containers. Many of the evicted Roma have spent five nights sleeping in the open in the absence of any alternative accommodation. There have been incidents of FK Rad hooligan (and skinhead) attacks on Roma, such as the death of thirteen-year-old Dušan Jovanović (1997), and also the death of actor Dragan Maksimović, who was assumed to be Romani (2001).

Due to a record of discrimination, human rights reporting mechanisms have consistently drawn attention to the treatment of the Romani people in Serbia.. The United Nations have reported persistent discrimination and social exclusion as a concern, particularly stemming from poor birth registration and identity documentation for citizens, and inequitable access to education, housing, employment, and legal protections. The UN has expressed concerns that the state of Serbia has failed to ensure accountability measures that continually monitor and implement these rights.

These persistent challenges cause many Roma to flee Serbia and other Balkan countries for EU countries. There are cases of Serbian children being granted refugee status in Ireland due to persecution due to Roma identity. However, with increasingly strict asylum measures in the EU, countries such as Germany are increasingly labeling Serbia and other Balkan countries as “safe countries of origin” despite a lack of measurable improvement in the ability of Roma groups to realize human rights in these countries.

Religion

According to the 2011 Census, most Roma in Serbia are Christians (62.7%). A majority belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church (55.9%), followed by Catholics (3.3%) and various Protestant churches (2.5%). There is also a significant Muslim Roma community living in Serbia, with 24.8% of all Roma being Muslim. A large part of the Roma people did not declare their religion.

Political parties

Roma in Slovakia

Slovakia

According to the last census from 2011, there were 105,738 persons counted as Romani people in Slovakia, or 2.0% of the population.

The first record of sightings of small groups of Romani within the area of present-day Slovakia are from 1322 AD, when the region was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Major waves of Romani nomads were recorded from 1417 onwards. In 1423 they received a decree from the Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxemburg at Szepes Castle, granting them Europe-wide right of passage and the right to settle. They proved to be useful metal workers for the royal armies fighting the Turks.

Through the ensuing centuries, whilst in western and central Europe Romani were treated violently and often expelled, the Hungarian Kingdom and Habsburg Monarchy in general provided a tolerant and stable safe-haven for the Romani community. In the 18th century, Joseph II of the house of Habsburg attempted to 'civilize' the Romani, for example by prohibiting their dress and customs and educating them. However these efforts generally failed.

After the repressive Romani policies of the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1939), the communist government of 1945-1989 attempted to integrate the Romani into the majority population through obligatory education and employment, and the formation of Romani organizations. The nomadic way of life was banned in 1958. Parts of the Romani population were also transferred from Slovakia into the country's Czech regions.

Though these policies were partly successful, after the 1989 Velvet Revolution, the Romani have once again found themselves on the margins of the society. On the one hand, there is a generous social system, but the system fails to effectively integrate them into the mainstream society.

Discrimination in education

Roma people suffer serious discrimination in Slovakia. Roma children are segregated in school and do not receive the level of education as other Slovakian children. Some are sent to schools for children with mild mental disabilities. As a result, their attainment level is far below average. Amnesty International’s report "Unfulfilled promises: Failing to end segregation of Roma pupils in Slovakia" describes the failure of the Slovak authorities to end the discrimination of Roma children on the grounds of their ethnicity in education. According to a 2012 United Nations Development Programme survey, around 43 per cent of Roma in mainstream schools attended ethnically segregated classes.

Forced sterilisation

A human rights fact finding mission found widespread violations of Romani women’s human rights including forced sterilisations, racially discriminatory access to health care and physical and verbal abuse by medical staff amongst others. The report states that there was a "clear and consistent patterns of health-care providers who disregarded the need for obtaining informed consent to sterilization and who failed to provide accurate and comprehensive reproductive health information to Romani patients."

Crime

Roma are the victims of ethnically driven violence and crime in Slovakia. According to monitoring and reports provided by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in 2013, racist violence, evictions, threats, and more subtle forms of discrimination have increased over the past two years in Slovakia. The ERRC considers the situation in Slovakia to be one of the worst in Europe, as of 2013.

Social help

Romani people receive new housing from municipalities and regional administrations for free every year, however people complain that some of them end up being destroyed by Romani people themselves. After the destruction, in some cases it has happened that the residents receive new housing, without being criminally prosecuted for destroying state property.

Public opinion

The 2019 Pew Research poll found that 76% of Slovaks held unfavourable views of Roma.

Roma in Slovenia

Slovenia

The 2002 census puts the Gypsy population figure at 3,246. The 1971 Yugoslav census recorded 977 Romanies, while in the 1991 census (the last in the Yugoslav Federation) 2,293 had declared themselves as Roma and, inexplicably, a larger number-2,847-said

Romani was their mother tongue. A report from the Institute for Nationality Questions in Ljubljana gave a figure of 5,300 for the Gypsy population for 1997. Experts estimate the Gypsy population as 10,000. Gypsies live in three regions: Prekmurje and near the borders of Austria and Hungary; Dolnesjska (southeast of Ljubljana); and Gorenjska-Alta Carniola near Bled.

The first report of Gypsies on the territory of present-day Slovenia dates from 1453 and refers to a smith. During World War II, part of Slovenia was annexed to Germany and the Gypsies living there were taken to concentration camps.

Slovenia became an independent state in 1991 after a brief skirmish with the Yugoslav Federation. Article 65 of the constitution of the new republic states: "The legal situation and particular rights of the Romany population living in Slovenia will be settled by the law." This vague statement has never been fully defined. The national law on local self-government stipulates that in areas where minorities live they should have members on councils, but in 1998 there was only one such Romany representative.

Although the Roma in Slovenia have escaped the miseries of the wars in the neighboring countries, their situation is unenviable. Most live in segregated settlements, are unemployed, and subsist on welfare payments, while the percentage in prison is much higher than for the Slovenian population as a whole. Only 509 were registered as having work, and only 25 percent of the children were at school. Roma children, as elsewhere in central and eastern Europe, have problems when they come to school because they do not know the majority language and lack social skills, while many schools try to avoid registering Romany children. Their lack of education leads the majority of Roma to depend on unskilled work, and they are the first to go when factory personnel are reduced. Such employment as there is includes cleaning, farm work, road construction, stonemasonry, and horse trading. Even qualified Roma find it difficult to get work because of discrimination. The rate of mortality is higher than for the Slovenian population as a whole.

There have been some examples of extreme prejudice in housing, as in 1997 when the Slovene inhabitants of Malina prevented a Romany family from moving into a house in their village-a move designed as part of an integration program. Local authorities refuse planning permission for Roma to build houses, refuse to find accommodation for them, and then blame them for building houses illegally or for living in poor conditions.

The central government of Slovenia has set up an Inter Departmental Commission for Roma Matters, which, aside from representatives of ministries, has members of the local authorities in areas where Roma live and from Romany organizations. Twenty distinct Romany communities are designated "autochthonous," that is, established in the country. They are entitled to a seat on their local municipal councils, and all but one council (Grosuplje) has complied.

In 1995 the government started a program to improve the lot of the Roma. Its aims included improving the living conditions in Romany settlements and increasing the educational opportunities for Romany children from nursery school to university. However, such official initiatives for Roma depend on local goodwill to carry them out. The Roma in Prekmurje are best organized and generally cooperate with the authorities, but in 1998 they organized a demonstration- blocking a highway-to press for the building of a road to the Romany village of Beltinci.

In the first seven years of the new state, seven Romany organizations were founded. They have now come together in one union, Zveza Romskih Drustev Slovenije (The Association of Romany Organizations in Slovenia), whose president is author Jozuek Horvat-Muc. These organizations are involved in the fields of culture, education, information, and sports, but not politics. Radio broadcasts in Romani come from Murska Sobota and Novo Mesto. In Murska Sob-ota, there is also a theater group that has been functioning since 1992. A magazine, Romano Them (Romany World), is published by a nongovernmental organization, while the Romanies in Murska Sob-ota produce their own bilingual paper, Romske Novice.

Roma and Gitanos in Spain

Spain

The history of Spanish Gypsies is more complicated than one of travelling beggars—they were an essential part of the development of modern Spanish culture. Here is their story.

When I was in Madrid in the late 1970s, we lived in the north of the city on Plaza de Castilla. Just beyond the square there was a large squatter village of Gypsies. We saw women with small children begging on many street corners, and sometimes a violinist played in the square. One of my Spanish friends told me to give them a coin or they would curse me with the “evil eye.” I dutifully kept coins in my pocket for charity, and sometimes crossed the street if I didn’t have any change. I wondered who these Gypsies were who seemed both a central part of Spanish society while also being on the fringes.

Who are the Roma People?

We should start with a note on terminology. Today, it is customary to refer to Gypsies as the “Rom” or “Roma” people. This term refers to recent (100 years or so ago) immigration of Gypsies from Eastern Europe, and groups who had been in Spain longer called themselves other names.

Who are the Gitanos?

Older immigrants were known by many different names. The term “Gypsy” – Gitano – was used in Spain, and it is derived from the word “Egypt,” since the first arrivals claimed they were from the Nile region. The Gitanos spoke caló, a dialect derived from Latin but with various other languages mixed in. Some Spanish sources refer to these travellers as calé, “black,” a caló word referring to their darker skin.

Gitanos are close-knit groups, who define themselves in contrast with outsiders. In most places Gypsies speak Romani, and in this language the common word for non-Gypsies is gadzé [Gadz], but in caló Spanish, non-Gypsies are called payo. Throughout their history, this has been the significant characteristic of Gypsy groups: they are separate from the surrounding society, wherever they are. So, where did they come from?

Travellers from India

Linguistic analysis of Gypsy dialects shows that all the Gypsy peoples originated in India. Small groups left the subcontinent sometime between 300 BC and AD 600. This huge date range shows only that we don’t have the sources to tell for sure.

A charming tale from medieval Persia (today’s Iran) tells of the arrival of Gypsies from India: The story goes that the Persian king wanted his people to work only half a day and spend the rest of their time eating and drinking to the sound of music. His people claimed they didn’t know how to make music. The king then sent for 10,000 male and female musicians to come from India.

The king gave them food and supplies and sent them to the countryside to work the land and play music. The Indian travellers recklessly ate everything without working. The king was angered and told them they should load their donkeys and travel the country never settling down. They were to earn their living by singing. Once they began this itinerant life, they began to be called Gypsies.

The Gypsies agreed to leave, and as the text relates the people “now wander the world, seeking employment, associating with dogs and wolves, and thieving on the road by day and by night.”

This founding myth followed the Gypsy bands as they slowly wandered through Iran and into Eastern Europe by the early fourteenth century. By the time they appeared in Europe, they had come up with a new origin story that would give them entrance to Christendom.

Their Origin Story

They claimed that they were from Egypt, and when the Holy Family fled there, the Gypsies refused to give them shelter. Because of this, they were assigned a penance of seven years of wandering. This story was often accompanied by documents of support – some clearly false – as from the pope, but along the way they persuaded other leaders to give them documents allowing them entry into lands and cities.

A second Christian story claimed that the Gypsies made four nails to crucify Christ, but they stole one to save Christ some suffering. Some Gypsies claimed that this holy deed gave them license to steal from non-Gypsies even as they were sentenced to wander for making the first three nails. This was not a founding myth that endeared them to others, but both stories claimed they were told to stay on the move, and they did.

It seems strange that Gypsies would come up with a story that would not make them look good to Christians, but medieval people (like many today) loved redemption stories. Christians were frequently doing pilgrimages to expiate their own sins, and the most legitimate explanation for travelling was to fulfil a vow or to pray at shrines.

Furthermore, people who gave charity to such pilgrims felt they gained spiritual merit. Gypsies fit right in and gates were opened.

At first, the great oak gates of walled cities opened for them and citizens welcomed the strangers into their towns. People gazed in wonder at the flowing costumes and talented dancers as they dropped coins into bowls as Gypsies played music. Fortune-tellers acquired even more coins by promising love and prosperity to the longing.

Then some people noticed their purses had been lifted and that food and goods had disappeared from their windows. As you can imagine, the Gypsies’ welcome wore thin, and they moved on.

Theirs was a life of movement and social cohesiveness. Everything depended on family ties and loyalty to kin. This was so pronounced that Gypsies arranged marriage, frequently between cousins (though first cousins were considered too close). Sometimes clans would expand by marriage with a neighbouring group, but family ties mattered more than anything else.

When Did the Gypsies Arrive in Spain?

As the tight-knit family groups wandered, they came to Spain. Like all the travelers before, some came across the Pyrenees and others across the Mediterranean. The earliest known document relating to Gypsies in Europe dates from January 12, 1425. Alfonso V of Aragon issued a safe-conduct through his kingdom, which extended from the Pyrenees south to Valencia, encompassing north eastern Spain.

The safe-conduct was issued to “Sir John from Little Egypt,” though of course, he wasn’t from Egypt at all. The pass included his band, and it was good for three months. But they weren’t the last band to be welcomed into Spain. For the next several decades, records show that various bands of Gitanos were welcomed into Spain and received safe-conduct. By the 1470s, new waves came from the Mediterranean. These groups called themselves Greeks and claimed they were fleeing from the Muslim Turks, seeking sanctuary in Christian Spain.

Common Questions About Spanish Gypsies

Q: Are there Gypsies still in Spain?

There are estimated to be 725,000 – 750,00 Roma (gypsies) in Spain, largely in Andalusia.

Q: Do the Gypsies have their own language?

Romani is the language spoken by the Gypsies or Roma, who number around 5 or 6 million.

Q: What exactly is a Gypsy?

Now called Roma, Gypsy is considered a pejorative from when these people were thought to have originated from Egypt. They are migrant peoples who have been transient for thousands of years.

Q: Do the Spanish Gypsies belong to the Roma?

Most of the Spanish Gypsies are considered Gitanos who belong to what’s known as the Iberian Cale group. Most of their language is composed of Spanish with Roma words included.

Roma of Sweden

Sweden

Swedish Romanisæl Travellers (Norwegian: romanifolket, tatere, sigøynere; Swedish: resande, zigenare, tattare; Scandoromani: romanisæl, romanoar, rom(m)ani, tavringer/ar, tattare, romani rakripa) are a group or branch of the Romani people who have been resident in Norway and Sweden for some 500 years. The estimated number of Romanisael Travellers in Sweden is 65,000, while in Norway, the number is probably about 10,000.[3] Not to be confused with Indigenous Norwegian Travellers.

Origins

By history and culture, they are related to British Romani Groups, such as English Romanichals, Welsh Kale, Scottish Lowland Gypsies/Travellers, and Indigenous Highland Travellers.

Modern-day Romanisael (Tater) Travellers are the descendants of the first Romanies who arrived in Scandinavia during the 16th century. Most were deportees from Britain to Norway, but small numbers came via Denmark. Norwegian and Swedish Romani identify as Romanisæl, this word has origins in the Angloromani word Romanichal, Romanichal is the word English Romani and Scottish Border Romani and Southern Welsh Romani use to identify themselves with.

A related group are the Finnish Kale, descendants of early Scandinavian Romanies who were deported in the 17th century from Sweden proper to Finland. The Finnish Kale, however, maintain that their ancestors had originally come from Scotland, They and other Scandinavian Romanisæl Travellers are related to present-day Romanichal Travellers of England and Scotland.

Romanisæl Travellers in Norway at times have been confused with the indigenous Norwegian Travellers, although they perceive the latter group to be non-Romanies by culture and origin.

Names for the group

By the settled majority population, the Norwegian Travellers are known as Romanifolk or the exonym tatere, and in Sweden they used to be called the similar exonym tattare, but are named officially under the term Roma today, while the endonyms in use are "dinglare" or " resande". Norwegian travellers most often use the endonyms "reisendes" or "vandriar". Both exonymous terms hint to the original misconception that these people were Tatars. Before the turn of the 20th century, the majority population made little distinction between tatere/tattare and "Gypsies" (Norwegian: sigøynere; Swedish: zigenare); this situation changed mainly due to the arrival of Kalderash Roma from Russia and Central Europe in the last decades of the 19th century, to whom the latter term came to be applied almost exclusively.

Skojare was a former name for Travellers in Sweden; in Norway skøyere was associated with indigenous Travellers. Fant or Fanter was another term formerly applied to both Romani and non-Romani Travellers in southern Norway. A lot of these terms nowadays are considered pejorative due to their connotation of vagabondage and vagrancy.

In Sweden, tattare is now considered a disparaging term and has been completely abandoned in official use. Since 2000 Swedish Travellers are officially referred to as resande (Travellers), and counted as one of several groups within the "Roma" national minority. They often refer to themselves as resandefolket (Travelling people), or dinglare. Less common is the term tavringar. In recent years there has been an attempt to term Swedish Travellers as tschiwi, but this usage is contested.

For Norwegian Travellers, however, the name tatere is severely disputed. For one part it does not carry the same stigma as in Sweden, the counterpart has for many years fought for the same rights as swedish romani; some Traveller organizations maintain this term in their official names. In Norway the Travellers are categorized as a national minority group, officially referred to as romanifolk or tatere, reisende (Travellers). Norwegian Travellers refer to themselves by various names, such as romany, romanoar, romanisæl, vandriar (Wanderers), etc. In contrast to Sweden, in Norway a distinction is made between romanifolket and rom (i.e., Roma groups that arrived since the 19th century) in the official legislation on national minorities.

Language

The Travellers in Sweden and Norway speak a form of the Romani language referred to as Scandoromani. Many words of the Nordic Romani origin have survived in the Scandinavian languages, both in common speech and slang. Examples:

Tjej, meaning "Girl" in Swedish (originally slang, but now a more common alternative to the older "flicka")
Puffra, meaning "Gun" in Swedish (used to be common slang)
Hak, meaning "Place" (as in "Joint" or "Establishment") in Swedish (used to be common slang)
Vischan, meaning "The countryside" (as in boondocks or rural areas) in Swedish (used to be common slang)

Organisations

Romani Travellers in Sweden and Norway have founded organisations for preserving their culture and lobbying for their collective rights. One example is Föreningen Resandefolkets Riksorganisation, based in Malmö, Sweden.

Roma In Switzerland

Switzerland

The spike in the number of Roma gypsies crossing Switzerland and the lack of camping spots have led to tensions with locals. Villages feel they have to fend for themselves, while travellers say they are all being tarred with the same brush.

Switzerland has had a very heated summer when it comes to the traveller community. There have been large scale camps, illegal camps, property damage, criminal complaints. Shots have even been fired. French-speaking Switzerland has been particularly affected as it is a popular destination with French Roma because of the common language.

The situation has become even more delicately balanced with an influx of Bulgarian and Romanian Roma, who benefit from European free movement rules allowing them to come and beg in richer countries. Switzerland has also seen a steady flow of Roma asylum seekers from Serbia.

Objectors have used the ill feeling generated by these developments to propose tough measures, such as the confiscation of caravans if a crime is committed, or the creation of an international "gypsy alert" system.

“It wouldn’t be a problem if there were enough camping grounds for everyone in this country. But there aren't even enough for us,” says Daniel Huber, head of an organisation for the nomadic Jenish people in German-speaking Switzerland.

“We already have the feeling that we don't have the same rights as people who live in one place, although we have the same obligations. And these problems are all the worse for us Jenish, because people assume we are the same as the Roma people.”

Different groups

The Jenish are often called the fifth minority of Switzerland. They number 30,000 and go to school, pay taxes and complete their military service as other citizens do, but are often viewed with suspicion by sedentary people. Though they normally try and keep a low profile, incidents during the summer have not helped their attempts to improve their image.

“Lumping these two peoples [Roma and Jenish] together is of itself racist. You have to distinguish between expectations and duties of the state towards its own citizens, and the expectations it has in other, very different situations,” says Doris Angst, director of the Federal Commission Against Racism.

“People probably don’t realise that the cultural differences between the Jenish and the Roma are wider than those between Jenish and sedentary people,” explains Urs Glaus, director of an organisation that tries to improve the lot of Swiss travellers.

“For example, a Roma person would not enter a toilet in full view of other people. This prudishness means that WCs are considered dirty and have sometimes been vandalised. You have to take this into account when designing infrastructure.”

“Every conflict involving the Roma makes the Jenish feel in danger, but they also put the Jenish into a quandary,” says Doris Angst.

“They want to distance themselves from trouble-makers, and at the same time want to defend them and the Jenish end up feeling trapped. It is not an ethnic dispute, but a territorial one. The government has the duty to protect this nomadic way of life and to make sites available to them.”

For Huber, “the biggest problem is that the cantons want us (the Jenish) to share the same camping grounds as the Roma, although our needs are not the same”.

“They travel in huge convoys, we stay in family-sized groups. They like to stay near major roads, we like to be in small spaces in the open air. All of this puts our people in danger.”

A territorial question

Around ten per cent of the Jenish are nomadic or semi-nomadic. “They have 14 sites available to them for the winter -- this is about 30 per cent of what they need,” explained Glaus. “Many of these families spend the winter in an apartment.”

“In ten years, the number of summer camping grounds has gone from 51 to 42, and the majority of them are rather badly equipped. Many have poor access to water. These summer sites can only cover 60 per cent of demand,” he told swissinfo.ch.

Huber noted that there was a rise in demand for resources because more young people are returning to a nomadic way of life. In German-speaking Switzerland the campsites vary greatly.

“The worst canton is Schwyz, which has only one tiny campground although it is one of the places our people come from. However Glarus has a long history of welcoming us. Zurich, Aarau and soon Bern will also be fairly well equipped. That proves it is possible.”

French-speaking Switzerland is less well served in terms of resources for Swiss itinerants as well as foreign nomads. At the moment only cantons Vaud and Valais have campgrounds for large parties, with three sites between them.

And the number of travellers in large parties is rising. “We had 5,345 caravan nights in 2009, 10,149 caravan nights in 2011 and we already passed that number in August this year," said Pierrette Roulet-Grin, a mediator for the traveller community from canton Vaud. “Our canton simply cannot handle the influx.”

Lack of political will

Observers say the solutions must come from politicians, but there doesn't seem to be a concerted will to act. “In 2001, the government asked the cantons to create 30 new campsites and 30 new transit areas within ten years. In 2012, we are still ten sites off the mark,” said Glaus.

As in other areas of Swiss life, the federal system can slow things down. The cantons are expected to enact Bern's decisions. Roulet-Grin said villages find this particular conundrum tough too.

“The government and the cantons sign new laws without really thinking about how they can be applied on the ground. The communes feel very alone, torn between the need to lodge nomads in an ordered way, without compromising public order and safety.”

The canton of Fribourg, for example, has given the green light to a Roma site near a motorway, but the construction has been put off till 2015 by the federal highway department, for budgetary reasons.

For the moment, problems around travellers are being solved by force. After the tensions this summer, Jacqueline de Quattro, justice minister in canton Vaud, decided that travellers who do not respect rules would be moved on by force.

Swiss communities must be very firm, the minister told the 24 Heures newspaper. “In order to harmonise procedures, I am going to issue standard procedures for the communes. We will set up a way to make a formal complaint to police, suggestions for how to put in claims for compensation, etc.”

She added that she would propose the same thing to all her counterparts in French-speaking Switzerland, “so that we can be in agreement on this”.

Roulet-Grin reckons that in the near future, the best solution would be to dissuade Roma who do not respect Switzerland’s rules from coming to the country.

“Swiss justice is simply too slow to punish those who vandalise and destroy what’s here. By the time something is done, they’re long gone. The justice system must be sped up, and work with the police to inflict fines on wrong-doers. Believe me, they understand that language very well.”

Roma in Turkey

Turkey

The Romani people in Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye'deki Romanlar). There are many subgroups, the majority group are the Şoparlar, who live in East Thrace. All subgroups in Turkey have in common, that they are Sunni muslims and speak Turkish.

There are officially about 500,000 Romani in Turkey.

Migration to Turkey

There are records of the presence of the Romani people from AD 800 in Thrace, known in Greek as Athinganoi and in Turkish as Çingene. The Romanlar in Turkey have their own oral tradition, according to which their Ancestors, once came as Traders from different parts of India and Pakistan as well. They arrived at the time of the Indo-Roman trade relations, to Egypt (Roman province), and settled around the Red Sea coast. From there they went to Arabian Peninsula, to Mesopotamia, to Persia to Lesser Caucasus to East Anatolia. With the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, Romani settled in Rumelia (southeastern Europe) under Ottoman rule. The name Roman/Romanlar came from the Turkish Doğu Roman İmparatorluğu (eastern Roman empire). Sulukule in Istanbul is the oldest Romani settlement in Europe, recorded in 1054. The majority of the Romani people in Turkey live in East Thrace, Marmara Region and Aegean Region. Uniquely in Ottoman history, the Muslim Romani people were given their own sanjak, or province, the sanjak of Vize. Romani people in Turkey speak Turkish as their first language, and no longer use Romani. They often marry non-Romani.

The descendants of the Ottoman Romani today are known as Muslim Roma. They are of Sunni Islamic faith of Hanafi madhab, and practise male Khitan (circumcision). In Edirne, the Kakava festival is held every year.

Legal status

In modern Turkey, Xoraxane Romani do not have a legal status of ethnic minority because they are traditionally adherents of the Islamic faith, adherents of which, regardless of ethnicity or race, are considered part of the ethnic majority in Turkey. This goes as far back as the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), in which Section III "Protection of Minorities" put an emphasis on non-Muslim minorities.

In popular culture

A group of Turkish Romani appears in the 16th century Ottoman Constantinople of the video game Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

Roma in Ukraine

Ukraine

“Two decades of joint efforts by European governments have made possible the development and implementation of a wide legal basis for a real program for the renaissance of the Gypsy nation. First of alt, special status for Gypsies as a supranational ethnic community has been established at an international level. The United Nations has adopted strict measures to combat instances of discrimination against Gypsies. Forty international agreements have been concluded to address the specific problems of Gypsies. Literature published in the Gypsy language, training for Gypsy teachers, and school programs are financed by government budgets. The European Parliament has called upon governments of alt member states to oversee the implementation of Gypsy-related directives. [...] And what about us? In Ukraine, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the state of affairs in the arena of the cultural revival of the Gypsy nation is a disaster...”

Such is the assessment of one Ukrainian journalist, Gleb Gorodni Schenko, of the current status of Roma related issues in Europe and in Ukraine. While Gorodnichenko’s view of the state of Roma politics in the rest of Europe romanticises, his article, entitled “Gypsies of Ukraine: Back to the Caravan or Forward into the Political Struggle”, which appeared in the Kiev daily Kievski Viedomosti in June 1996, constitutes part of a growing movement in the Ukrainian press to critically assess the treatment of Roma in Ukraine by the state, the media, and the wider non-Romani populace. The arrival of glasnost to the issue of Roma in Ukraine is welcome. And while many articles continue to portray Roma only in the context of crime, there are indications that more sympathetic approaches may be on the way.

An article appearing recently in the Ukrainian daily newspaper Visnik Periaslavshini describes the lives of Roma in the town of Periaslavl, in northern Ukraine. Noting that “...documented information on Gypsies can not be found in either the historical cultural society, nor in the city archives,” reporter Aleksandr Pomoinitski sought history from the Roma themselves. He met with 74-year-old Grigory Vasylyovich Kirichenko, one of the elders of the forty-family Periaslavl Roma community and asked him to recall some of the important events of his life. Among other things, Kirichenko told him the following:

I was born in 1923 in the Chernigov region. Our family was travelling in a caravan at that time and had halted there. My father was a blacksmith, and he had a portable smithy. Including me, there were five children in the family. All of us were boys, and we became good helpers to our father as we grew. I also mastered the art of blacksmithing.

In 1939 our caravan settled near Little Karatula and one day the police came. After a very thorough search of our belongings, the police arrested my mother and sent her to jail. What for? Officially it was for speculation in the sale of fabric. In reality, they had only found ten meters of cloth. At that time, the government had started to persecute migrant Gypsies and send them to jail for no reason.

To escape this persecution, we fled to Donbas. Eventually I moved to Dniepropetrovsk where I entered a vocational school to learn the profession of boiler technician. At that time I also joined the Young Communist League. When the war started, I volunteered for the army. First I was sent to an artillery division, and then I became a paratrooper. Eventually I was transferred to the troops in charge of land mines where I was an assistant to the platoon commander. As a reward for my valiant service and at my request, the commander wrote to union leader Kalinin, requesting the release of my mother from the Ural concentration camp. And indeed, in 1943, my mother was released.

During the war I was wounded and then awarded the Order of the Red Star and another medal for bravery. I have kept alt the documents to confirm this, just as I have proudly kept my membership cards in the Young Communist League and the Red Army. On Victory Day I was by the river Oder, not far from Berlin.

After demobilization, I found my family near Yerkovetz where our caravan had settled at that time. I found them with the help of my Uncle Vasyl in Kiev. He lived in Podol, and was a tram driver on the number 13 line. Our migrating relatives used to keep in touch through him.

After meeting my family, I began trying to convince my father to leave the caravan and settle in Periaslavl, since after the war the persecution of migrants did not stop. My father considered my advice and then bought a house in Piedvarky.

I graduated from a driving course and went to Kazakhstan to develop virgin land by mandate of the Young Communist League. I didn’t earn a lot of money, but I saved enough to buy a simple house in Periaslavl. The house was a simple clay hut and it was not too far from my father’s place.

Around that time I married a girl called Galya, also a Gypsy, with whom I have lived happily ever since. Soon we began to have children, first a daughter Valya, and then our sons Vasyl and Sashko. Everything would have been fine, except the house was cold and damp. The roof leaked and the children became ill very often. I wanted to build a new house, but I did not have the chance to get good building materials. At that time I worked in a Periaslavel garage and was considered a good worker, but neither the administration nor the local government wanted to help me.

Since I could not get the things I needed from the local administration, I went to first Secretary Osadchyi and told him about the problems I was having with my house. He looked at me and said, ‘I’ve got better things to do than to help Gypsies’ and then he turned his back to me to look out of the window.”

The use of memoir and personal history is a powerful way to bring the voice of Roma to the ear of the public. Other articles have used different strategies. One notable style has been that of Gleb Gorodnichenko, quoted at the out set, which highlights the victimisation of Roma as a group. Gorodnichenko dwells at length on 20th century history to show that, like Ukrainians, Roma have suffered a series of catastrophes, although ones particular to Roma. This demonstration of symmetry between Roma history and Ukrainian history can help create a space of legitimacy for Roma in the present nationalist atmosphere. Much of the narrative force behind the drive for independence in Ukraine was derived from traumas of persecution such as the famines artificially created by Stalin in the 1930s.

Presentations of Romani history in Ukraine which highlight the persecution of Roma by Nazi Germany and by the Soviet state can therefore be effective in opening a meaningful debate about the place of Roma in Ukraine:

“The repressive Stalinist regime did not bypass this people. Their right to a linguistic and cultural identity, established during the first years of Soviet power, was completely eradicated. Thousands of Gypsies were exiled to Siberia. Gypsy-run co-operatives and collective farms were closed down. The elimination of this ethnic minority was also one of the principal program items of fascist governments in Europe during World War II. The old and the young were shot on sight. There are still no statistics on how many Gypsy lives were lost to this meat grinder [...] But the Gypsies took up arms. It is known that in the Chernigov region more than fifteen hundred Gypsies were part of small guerilla bands — these were people who were too late to join the regular army in 1941.

The tragedy continued with the 1956 deportations of Gypsies. In the same year, the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR sanctioned the `exile and forced community labour for up to five years’ for Gypsies ‘who would have [otherwise] evaded useful community work.’ The anti-Gypsy campaign, initiated by Kliment Voroshilov, lasted for five years. Courts issued numerous sentences. Trainloads of exiled Gypsies were sent beyond the Urals. Families were torn apart. In the name of the law, children were taken to orphanages while parents were Bent to the camps and exiled dwellings. Many families fled to other countries — Romania, Poland, Hungary, and even China! But even after cancellation of the decree, the life of this nation of wanderers did not improve. Older Gypsies still recall how the police used to come to their dwellings and take able-bodied men to harvest crops. Everything was arranged very simply: ‘fifteen days of rehabilitation work!’ The people’s memory holds numerous examples of such discrimination and oppression.

Gorodnichenko presents not only the legacy for Roma of the brutal 20th century, but he also accurately describes the present situation of Roma in Ukraine:

Illiteracy and legal defencelessness exacerbate discrimination against Gypsies by the local authorities and the police. According to many Gypsies, arbitrary arrest by the police has acquired a purely ritualistic character: ‘Gypsy?’ ‘Gypsy.’ ‘Come with us.’ A demand for “ransom” follows. It is very easy to attribute an unsolved crime to a man who is illiterate. This improves the police’s record in the fight against crime.

A Gypsy must pay for everything when he is dealing with a low-level official: for information, for a driver’s license, for a residence permit. Years of this type of treatment mean that there is no trust in the official structures.

All attempts by activists to conceive of projects for the rehabilitation of Gypsy cultural self determination collide, at very best, with the empty smiles of the Ministry of Nationalities. Tasks of primary importance, such as the organisation of Gypsy kindergartens and schools, disintegrate before references to “empty budgets”. [...] The project of an orphanage for Gypsy children has been halted. Promising projects have not been implemented due to a lack of physical space. Gypsy communities are ready to purchase a suitable building — spare nothing for the sake of children — but the government in the capital does not want to deal with the problem: ‘You have a theatre. Why do you need an educational establishment?’ The Kiev Gypsies were even refused permission to hire the building for community cultural events.

Yet despite the new sympathetic treatment of Roma by some Ukrainian journalists, the treatment of Roma in the Ukrainian press has tended to retain the classic duality: crime on the one hand and culture and music on the other. Roma leader Aladar Adam, surveying the press in the pages of the Journal Rio Inform, writes:

The largest number of articles [to address the theme of Roma directly] is devoted to various festivals of Gypsy folklore, concerts, etc. [...] The next group of publications contains real descriptions of how Roma live, but without any sort of deep socio-economic analysis. [...] We note and decry the media’s habit of emphasising cases in which Gypsies are suspects, as well as of emphasising the ethnic origin of Gypsy suspects.

And while representations of Roma in the media may be beginning to lose some of the mythic Gypsy stereotyping, the real situation of Roma in Ukraine remains troubling: since the end of the Soviet Union, Roma have been subjected to regular and debilitating abuse, most grotesquely by the police. Independent research conducted by the ERRC in the Transcarpathian region in south-western Ukraine documented serious human rights abuses: Roma in Transcarpathia are subjected to police beatings in public and in custody, as well as to a series of invasive “prophylactic” measures by the police which violate international law. Individual police officers have also committed Bross excesses, both in and out of uniform. Further, Roma in Transcarpathia have been subjected to a wide array of discriminatory administrative procedures, as well as to physical attack by non-Roma. Finally, the Ukrainian legal system has, in Transcarpathia, almost completely failed to provide redress when the rights of Roma have been violated.

Frustration at the inactivity of the Ukrainian judicial system prompted the Uzhorod Roma association Romani Yag to lodge formal protest with the Transcarpathian regional prosecutor in May of this year. Their complaint reads as follows:

Since the beginning of 1997, Uzhorod’s and the Uzhorod region’s residents of Gypsy nationality have repeatedly brought complaints to the Transcarpathian cultural and educational association Romani Yag concerning illegal actions and cases of physical violence by the police, some times causing bodily injury. In addition, we have received many reports of illegal arrests and other violations of the constitutional rights of citizens.

Because of such complaints, the association has submitted many requests for official investigation of these abuses. These complaints, however, have been sent from the office of the public prosecutor of the Uzhorod region to the Ministry of Internal Affairs where nobody has dealt with them thoroughly. The only result has been the writing of formal letters to the complainant. No measures (disciplinary or of any other character) have yet been taken. Perpetrators specified by name in a particular complaint have not yet been brought to justice.

For example, on April 2, 1997, we filed a complaint on behalf of 19-year-old Mr. U.I.F. This com plaint described the circumstances under which Mr. U.LF. was beaten by the director of the Dobron collective farm administration and by three other people whom he is able to identify. Afterwards, he was unlawfully detained by the Uzhorod police, who failed to complete the necessary formalities.

We presumed that because such a complaint has been submitted, the office of the public prosecutor should have opened a criminal case according to Paragraph 102 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Alternately, the prosecution should have asked Uzhorod’s executive committee of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs to open a criminal case. This complaint has, however, evidently never been considered.

In another instance, we lodged a formal complaint concerning the case of Mr. B.Y.L. of the village of Kontsovo, Uzhorod District, who came to us for help on April 2. Mr. B.Y.L.1 reported that at the beginning of February and in March of 1997 he was stopped and beaten without any reason by the police. He also reported that the police carried out a search in his house without presenting a proper warrant. During this search, the police confiscated a tape recorder, a bag of nails, a few electrical sockets and Mr. B.Y.L.’s passport. The passport has not yet been returned. Among the policemen who questioned Mr. B.Y.L. was Officer S.M. Nothing has been done about this complaint apart from a formal response from the administration of the Transcarpathian division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, issued on April 23, 1997.

There are, in fact, many cases in which the police unjustly detain people of Gypsy nationality for suspicion of having committed a crime. Such detentions are generally not properly registered and the formalities specified by Paragraphs 106 and 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine are usually not followed. After questioning, during which violence is extremely likely, suspects are usually released.

For instance, Mr. I.IG., born on January 18, 1960, a current resident of Uzhorod, is presently a suspect in the criminal case N1202197. He has been accused of committing a crime under Section 3 of Paragraph 81 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in February 1997. Mr. I.I.G. reported to Romani Yag that he was stopped and detained by the Uzhorod police for five days with out completing necessary formalities. After being beaten by the police, Mr. I.I.G. confessed to committing a crime. In court, however, Mr. I.I.G. denied his involvement in the crime arguing that his confession was physically forced. These circumstances were not taken into consideration by the court.

These are only a few of the cases we are aware of in which the Uzhorod police have acted illegally and violated the rights of citizens who are Gypsies by nationality.

Romani Yag has since reported that on May 1, 1997, at around 2:00 p.m., a 17-year-old Romani girl named R.D. was detained by police officers on suspicion of the theft of gold earrings. She was allegedly brought to department N3 of Uzhorod municipal police, where she was questioned with neither her parents nor legal counsel present or even notified of her detention. According to her testimony, the officer who questioned her, whose name is known to the ERRC, beat her repeatedly on the head with his hands and hit her once on the back. He insulted her and called her derogatory names. After wards, she was reportedly brought to the municipal police station on Gagarin Street, where she was kept until approximately 7 p.m. She was released without being charged. Upon release she had to be hospitalised and was diagnosed as having a concussion. The family of the victim obtained a medical protocol certifying her injuries on May 4. On May 14, 1997, Romani Yag filed a complaint at the Uzhorod Prosecutor’s Office requesting investigation of police ill-treatment of Ms. R.D.

For a long time after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal, its free-fall economy and unresolved issues with Russia diverted international attention from almost all other issues in the country. More recently, Ukraine has come under criticism from international bodies such as the Council of Europe for continuing to apply the death penalty. Recent reports by the ERRC and Amnesty International describe many of the problems faced by Roma in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the plight of Roma in Ukraine has yet to attain wide international recognition.

Roma in the United States of America

United States of America

It is estimated that there are one million Romani people in the United States, though the Romani population in the United States has largely assimilated into American society. The largest concentrations are in Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, Texas and the Northeast as well as in cities such as Chicago and St. Louis.

The largest wave of Romani immigrants came as a result of the abolition of Romani slavery in the occupied Balkan region of the weakening Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Romani immigration to the United States has continued at a steady rate ever since, with an increase of Romani immigration following the 1989 collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.

The size of the Romani American population and the absence of a historical and cultural presence, such as the Romani have in Europe, make Americans largely unaware of the existence of the Romani as a people. The term's lack of significance within the United States prevents many Romani from using the term around non-Romani: identifying themselves by nationality rather than heritage. The U.S. Census does not distinguish Romani as a group since it is neither a nationality nor a religion. Romani Americans are the least integrated group in the United States, along with Native Americans. Some Romani Americans prefer to pass as another ethnic group such as Native American, Mexican or Romanian.

Residing in all states, their largest concentrations are in New York, Virginia, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, and the Pacific Coast. Romani Americans usually sell used cars and trailers, black-topping driveways and roofing to earn money. Romani American careers are also psychics, astrologers, palm readers, tarot card readers, metal recycling and auto-body and fender repair. Other sources of income for Romani Americans is seasonal farm labour, welfare, selling flowers on the street and begging. They usually live in mobile homes and trailer parks.

There were Gypsies with Christopher Columbus on his third voyage to Hispaniola (comprising present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1498.

The first Gypsies came to the New World as a result of deportations from England, France, Portugal, and Spain. Romani slaves were first shipped to the Americas with Columbus in 1498. Spain sent Romani slaves to their Louisiana colony between 1762 and 1800. The Romanichal, the first Romani group to arrive in North America in large numbers, moved to America from Britain around 1850. Eastern European Romani, the ancestors of most of the Romani population in the United States today, began immigrating to the United States on a large scale over the latter half of the 19th century coinciding with the weakening grip of the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman Wars in Europe in the 19th century, which ultimately culminated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), freeing many ethnic Eastern Europeans from Ottoman dominance and producing new waves of Romani immigrants.

That wave of Romani immigration comprised Romani-speaking peoples like the Kalderash, Machvaya, Lovari and Churari, and ethnically Romani groups that had integrated more within the Central and Eastern European societies, such as the Boyash (Ludari) of Romania and the Bashalde of Slovakia. Bashalde reside principally in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Chicago and Las Vegas. Romani immigration, like all Central and Eastern European migration, was severely limited during the Soviet era in Central and Eastern Europe but picked up again in the 1990s after the fall of the Eastern Bloc.

The British, the Dutch and the Scottish sent Romani slaves to Virginia and the Caribbean such as Jamaica. Germany banished them to Pennsylvania. Sweden sent them to the Delaware region.

In 1999, the United States received Romani refugees from Kosovo.

In the nineteenth century, non-Roma referred to Roma as “coloured.” President Andrew Johnson, when vetoing the 1866 Civil Rights Bill, said: “This provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of colour, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood.”

Roma in the United States mainly came from Serbia, Russia and Austria-Hungary and largely worked as coppersmiths and fortune tellers. Romani Americans also came from Italy, Greece, Romania and Turkey.

Groups

Ludar: Hailing from North of the Balkans, Hungary, and the Banat, the Ludari, also known as Rudari, Boyash, or Banyash, are a subculture of Romani who arrived during the late 19th and early 20th centuriesHungarian-Slovak Romani: The Romani of Northern Hungary largely settled in industrial cities of the Northern United States near the turn of the century. Among Romani from these areas were Olah, Romungre, and Bashalde immigrants. They were noted for their musical traditions and popularized Romani music in the United States by performing in cafes, night clubs and restaurants. Their prevalence in show business made Hungarian-Slovak Romani the most visible of the Romani groups arriving in America at the turn of the century and helped to shape the modern American idea of a Romani. Romanichal: The ancestral home of the Romanichals is the British Isles. Members of this group are found across the U.S., with concentrations in Arkansas, Texas and the Southeast.
Black Dutch: Gypsies from Germany, whom de Wendler-Funaro refers to as Chikkeners (Pennsylvania German, from the German Zigeuner), sometimes refer to themselves as "Black Dutch." They are few in number and claim to have largely assimilated into Romnichel culture. They are represented in de Wendler-Funaro's photographs by a few portraits of one old man and briefly referred to in the manuscript "In Search of the Last Caravan."

ROMA GYPSIES OF WORLD

Part 3

The Netherlands thru The United States of America

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Roma in the Netherlands

Roma in Norway

We're all the same to them

An exhibition about Roma without them

What is good and what is evil

Roma from the Balkans

Norwegian Roma

Integration efforts and the "big swindle"

Roma in Poland

Polska Roma

Culture

History

Origins

In the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth

During the Polish partitions

Interwar Poland

Porajmos

After World War II

Polska Roma today

Roma in Portugal

Legal status

Roma in Romania

Origins

Terminology

History and integration

Before 1856

Between 1856 and 1918

Between 1918 and 1945

During the communist regime and after 1989

Religion

Cultural influence

Self-proclaimed "Romani royalty"

Ruska Roma - Roma of Russia

Ruska Roma in Russian history

Roma in Serbia

Subgroups

Culture

Demographics

Discrimination

Religion

Political parties

Roma in Slovakia

Discrimination in education

Forced sterilisation

Social help

Public opinion

Roma in Slovenia

Roma and Gitanos in Spain

The history of Spanish Gypsies is more complicated than one of travelling beggars—they were an essential part of the development of modern Spanish culture. Here is their story.

Who are the Roma People?

Who are the Gitanos?

Travellers from India

Their Origin Story

When Did the Gypsies Arrive in Spain?

Common Questions About Spanish Gypsies

Roma of Sweden

Origins

Names for the group

Language

Organisations

Roma In Switzerland

Roma in Turkey

Migration to Turkey

Legal status

In popular culture

Roma in Ukraine

Roma in the United States of America

Groups