jpr / policy paper       No. 3 1996

The Roma/Gypsies of Europe:
a persecuted people

'The treatment of Roma/Gypsies has become a litmus test for a humane society. Their widespread suffering is now one of Europe's most pressing-but most neglected-human rights issues.'
Margaret Brearley

Summary

Second to the Jews, the Roma are Europe's oldest non-Christian minority. In many European coun-tries which now have a minimal Jewish presence, Roma have taken over the role of principal scapegoat. Their treatment has become a litmus test for a humane society. Today they suffer serious and increasing persecution. Since the collapse of com-munism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, their plight has significantly worsened in that region. Roma face new forms of discrimination and legal harassment in several West European countries, including Britain. The widespread suffer-ing of Roma is now one of Europe's most pressing-but most neglected-human rights issues.
This Policy Paper outlines the tragic history of persecution of the Roma in Europe from their arrival in the fourteenth century to barbaric measures against them in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries-including forced labour or expulsion, enslavement, forcible and permanent removal of children, hunts to the death, the imposition of the death penalty on the sole grounds that the individual was a Gypsy-and their genocidal suffering during the Second World War. Numerous parallels are drawn between the history of anti-gypsyism and the history of antisemitism.

Above all, the paper focuses on the contemporary situation of Roma in various European countries. Persecution of Roma today takes many forms. Grassroots prejudice, deriving from centuries of official outlawry, runs deep and often results in public hostility and discrimination, lynchings, house-burnings and murder. Roma are a prime target for skinhead and ultra-nationalist violence, and are sometimes victims of police brutality. They are virtually always on the bottom rung of society: the severity of their health, educational and housing problems approximates that in the developing world and is more acute than in any other sector of the population. In some Central and East European countries most Roma are destitute.

Since 1989 many impoverished or persecuted Roma in Central and Eastern Europe have been able to extend their nomadism (their traditional survival mechanism) across borders and seek asylum in the West. This in turn has triggered hostility, violence, repressive government legislation and forced repatriation.

Although it concentrates on the urgent humanitarian needs of today's Roma, this paper also records the new measures being introduced at national and European levels, both by newly formed Roma organizations and by governmental and voluntary bodies. Concern at the unique and growing problems faced by Roma has resulted in important initiatives within the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The paper also makes a number of recommendations for further policy initiatives on behalf of Roma.

Preface

In devoting this Policy Paper to the persecution of Roma in Europe, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) is continuing the tradition of commitment to general human rights issues followed by its predecessor, the Institute of Jewish Affairs.

Moreover, Jewish scholars have for many years been involved in Romany issues, both at an academic level and in political activism on behalf of Roma. It is hoped that this Policy Paper will contribute at both levels by outlining the tragic history of the oppression of Gypsies in Europe, highlighting the factual details of their current situation and proposing policy recommendations.

The preparation of this paper has been long and complicated, partly because there are no Roma archives in Britain. Many of the materials used were drawn from the private libraries and document collections of two academic specialists and political activists working on behalf of Gypsies, the linguist Dr Donald Kenrick and the sociologist Dr Thomas Acton, to both of whom I am deeply indebted.

I am especially grateful to Dr Paul Iganski, social researcher and a member of the JPR Research Board, for writing the policy recommendations and to Dr Donald Kenrick for providing material enabling me to update the current developments section.

While there may well be ethnic and cultural overlap between Roma and other travellers (e.g. Irish travellers and the Swiss Jenisch), who also experience hostility and persecution, this paper focuses solely on Roma. For reasons of space, it cannot be comprehensive. There is no discussion of Romany communities outside Europe. Regrettably, certain countries with sizeable Gypsy populations have had to be omitted, primarily due to of lack of space or of sufficient readily available material, but also because there is normally less active harassment in those countries.(1)

Readers familiar with JPR's Antisemitism World Report and its standardized format for coverage of individual countries should not expect similar standardization in this paper. With some exceptions, such as Spain, the length of an entry reflects the relative numbers of Roma resident within that country and the acuteness of their situation. Data relating to Roma are often sparse and contradictory. Information is easier to obtain for Central and Eastern Europe than for Western Europe, with the major exceptions of Albania and the former Soviet republics. It is known that harassment of Roma is currently an increasing problem in some of the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldava and the Ukraine, but no details appear in this paper due to lack of verifiable sources.

Within Europe as a whole, the history and present situation of Gypsies within a given country is often highly distinctive. Each country is therefore treated as a discrete entity and, where appropriate, a brief history of Gypsies in that country is included. Nevertheless, key common factors in the treatment of Roma do emerge. Both historical and contemporary factors have been summarized.

The paper cannot claim to be an adequate reflection of the complex economic and social burdens experienced by Roma today. But it will, I hope, transmit something of their past and present suffering and alert its readers to the urgency of their plight and to the importance of protecting both the Gypsies and their unique identity.

1 All statistics of Roma populations (unless derived from government census figures, which are invariably unreliable) are taken from the Minority Rights Group report byJcan-Pierre Liegeois and Nicolae Gheorghe, Roma/Gypsies: A European Minority (London 1995), 7 (hereafter MRGJ. Countries/areas omitted include: Turkey (300,000-500,000), Greece (160,000- 200,000), Scandinavia (24,000-32,000), Portugal (40,000-50,000), Belgium (10,000-15,000), the Netherlands (35,000-40,000), Switzerland (30,000-35,000) and Ukraine (50,000-60,000).

Introduction

A land without Gypsies is a land without freedom.(2)

Living scattered all over Europe, not having a country to call their own, Gypsies are a true European minority, but one that does not fit in the definitions of national or linguistic minorities. Council of Europe recommendation, January 1994

The Roma are the most vilified and harassed minority in Europe today. Exact population figures are not available: in censuses many Roma conceal their identity due to the internalized racism and shame borne of persecution and/or as a survival mechanism. Numbering between 7 and 8.5 million, including over 5.2 million in Central and Eastern Europe, Roma are more despised than any other ethnic group. In opinion surveys of attitudes towards various nationalities/ethnic groups sponsored by the American Jewish Committee in a number of European countries between 1991 and 1996, respondents almost consistently voiced the greatest degree of hostility towards Gypsy communities.(3) Referring to Roma in Central and Eastern Europe, Tom Gross wrote in 1994: 'No other group in this region ... is currently exposed to such widespread racial hatred and prejudice— and there are signs that the situation is worsening.'(4) 

List of abbreviations

CDMG      European Committee on Migration (of the Council of Europe)
CE          Council of Europe
CERA       European Centre for Research and Action on Racism and Antisemitism
CSCE      Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe
EC          European Community
EU          European Union
IRR         Institute of Race Relations, London
MRG        Minority Rights Group
NGO        Non-governmental organization
ODIHR     Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (of OSCE)
OECD      Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
OSCE      Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
UNHCR     Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

1/ Historical outline

It is certain that the Gypsies have at all times been godless, wicked people who are harried with complete justification.(13) 

Origins 
The Roma are, like the Jews, one of the oldest surviving minority groups in Europe. It is assumed, on linguistic and ethnic grounds, that they descend from several tribes or castes which left northern India between 500-1000 CE, perhaps following Muslim invasions. The Roma comprise many diverse tribal groupings, distinct but linguistically and ethnically related. Although culturally heterogeneous, they are linked as one people by the Romani language, which has more than 100 dialects but a common core vocabulary, two-thirds deriving from Sanskrit or Hindi. Other uniting factors include: a strong core culture and value system, cleanliness/pollution taboos, autonomous systems of justice, traditions of purposeful nomadism and a shared history of persecution and group solidarity. 

Roma who were long settled in Central and Western Europe were often given derogatory names by non-Gypsies {gaje, gadze), reflecting their presumed origins ('Gypsies' from 'Little Egypt', claimed by some Roma as their country of origin and perhaps referring to Rom settlements in the eastern Mediterranean) and presumed heresy ('Heiden' in German; 'Cigane', 'Tsigane' and 'Zigeuner' out of confusion with the heretical Byzantine sect from Asia Minor of 'Atsinganos', 'untouchables'). But long-established Roma groups developed other names for themselves—Cale ('blacks') in Spain and southern France, Romanichals in England, Sinti in Germany and Manouches in France. Later nineteenth-century arrivals from the Balkans, following the abolition of Roma slavery in 1855-6, included tribes named from traditional skills (Kalderash, or copper-smiths; Lovari, or horse-dealers; Ursari, or bear-leaders). 

Roma in medieval Europe 
After their departure from India, Roma migrated slowly westwards in family or tribal groups through Iran and Armenia, reaching Constantinople in the eleventh century. By the late fourteenth century they were widely established in the Balkans and beyond. By 1427 they were travelling throughout Western Europe in groups of 100-300 or more and had reached Saragossa, Augsburg, Eeipzig, Zurich, Hamburg, Brussels and Rostock. 

In pre-Reformation Europe, paganism had been extinguished. Marginal groups—including heretics, early proto-Protestants and Jews—were at best tolerated, at worst harshly persecuted and killed or, in the case of Jews in numerous states, banished. Europe meant Christendom—Roman Catholic in the West, Orthodox in the East. Although essentially animist, Roma were not immediately persecuted. Claiming to be penitent pilgrims under papal or imperial protection, they initially inspired a warm reception by ecclesiastical and secular authorities and local populations, despite their exotic dress and outlandish appearance. Official gifts of alms, food and clothing were the norm. But although Roma leaders—frequently non-Gypsy and called 'dukes' or 'counts' in contemporary chronicles—produced often authentic documents of safe conduct from emperors, nobility or the Pope, hospitality soon gave way to hostility. 

Beginnings of repression 
As constantly shifting groups of 'pilgrims' returned, benevolence waned. Some local populations were alienated by incidents of petty theft; the Church opposed fortune-telling and healing; racism triggered by a dark skin, oriental dress and presumed Islamic provenance increasingly provoked contempt. More importantly, as increasingly centralized nation- states grappled, during the sixteenth century, with the massive social upheavals caused by early agrarian capitalism (including unemployment, destitution and increased vagrancy due to field enclosures and abandoned villages), harsh legislative measures were introduced to curb begging and all itinerants. 

Linked to these harsh measures, and perhaps to new theological intolerance and fear of popular uprisings (such as the German Peasants' Revolt in 1523) inspired partly by the incipient Reformation, were 'the sustained genocidal persecution and enslavement [of Roma] which appeared in the third and fourth decades of the sixteenth century'.(14) In this more repressive climate Gypsies proved a ready-made scapegoat. Banishment, refusals of safe conduct passes and repressive legislation designed to outlaw nomadic Gypsies replaced charity virtually everywhere by the end of the sixteenth century. 

Roma in Eastern Europe 
The fate of Roma in Eastern Europe varied widely (cf. sections on individual countries); they became predominantly sedentary, as opposed to West European Gypsies, who remained predominantly nomadic. In the north they experienced expulsion, forced assimilation and extermination in turn. Under the Ottoman Empire (Albania, Bulgaria and other parts of the Balkans), Roma generally fared better than in Christendom, although taxation could be harsh. Roma occupied separate quarters of towns and villages. They were free to remain nomadic and not specifically subject to repressive laws. In Wallachia and Moldavia, however, they were perpetual slaves from the fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, and bear the scars of slavery even today.'(15) Without rights and as the property of secular princes or monasteries, they were in the absolute power of their masters, who could dispose of them at will, and torture and kill them without penalty. Mihail Kogalmceanu, a campaigner for the emancipation of Roma slaves, wrote in 1837: 'The Europeans are organizing philanthropic societies for the abolition of slavery in America, yet in the bosom of their own continent of Europe, there are 400,000 Gypsies who are slaves, and 200,000 more equally victim to barbarousness.'(16)

Roma in Western Europe 
In Western Europe the fate of Roma varied in detail from country to country and from decade to decade, but most states sought at some stage to annihilate the Gypsy presence within their borders, particularly if it was nomadic. In various countries at various times, organized Gypsy hunts became a fashionable sport. To be a Rom was a crime; if apprehended, the penalty could be torture, flogging, branding and banishment. The penalty for a second offence was death by hanging for men and drowning for women. To deter Romanies from entering a particular territory, public warning signs showing the flogging and branding of a Romany were often displayed near borders. 

Male Roma were often sent to the royal galleys, serving as chained oarsmen for many years. Women and children could be forcibly banished. In Hungary, Germany, Spain and elsewhere, children as young as two or four could be forcibly removed from their mothers and given to non-Romanies to rear. (The fact that Gypsy children often sought to escape and their parents attempted to rescue them may have led to the myth that Gypsies steal non-Gypsy children. In fact, non-Gypsies stole Gypsy children for forced assimilation.) 

France 
The most difficult period for Roma in France was the late seventeenth century. Laws enacted in 1666 decreed that all Roma males were to be sent to the galleys for life. Louis XIV strengthened these laws in 1682: boys too young for the galleys were to be placed in hospices, women and girls branded and : banished. Nobility and magistrates were forbidden to shelter Romanies on pain of losing both office and domains. Such laws were enforced as rigorously as small police forces permitted. Romany bands were hunted down, many were sent to the galleys and clan groups were dispersed. Small family units became sedentary or sought shelter in isolated mountain or border regions. 

Germany 
In some German states, all adult Romanies faced torture, flogging, branding and banishment, while males could be sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour. If banished Romanies reappeared, they were liable to hanging without trial. The Netherlands pursued an equally repressive policy: harsh measures, bordering in the eighteenth century on genocide, included organized large-scale Gypsy hunts, hard labour and the gallows. 

England 
In England, specific legislation adopted against Gypsies was designed to expel all who chose not to become sedentary, on pain of forfeiture of life and property. Wandering Romanies "were hanged for nomadism until the 1650s in England and 1714 in Scotland. Lesser penalties for being apprehended as Gypsies remained, including whipping, hard labour or perpetual banishment. Children between the ages of five and fourteen could be taken into unpaid bonded service until the age of eighteen for girls and twenty-four for boys (such legislation also applied to non-Gypsy beggars). Laws attacking vagabondage continued to name 'Gypsies' specifically as late as the Vagrant Act of 1824. 

Roma and the Church 
Although, from early on, Roma had often sought to baptize their children and have Church marriages and funerals, the Church was largely hostile towards them until nineteenth-century Protestant revival movements encouraged active proselytizing among them. In Central and Eastern Europe, slaves belonging to churches and monasteries were treated even more cruelly than those of the nobility. In 1568 Pope Pius V sought to expel all Gypsies from the domain of the Roman Catholic Church, prompting Spain, Portugal and France to begin shipping Roma as slaves to colonies in Africa and the Americas. 

Forced assimilation in the eighteenth century 
By the eighteenth century, the forcible sedentarization and assimilation of Roma had replaced the aims of total exclusion and death. The ultimate aim was the annihilation of Romany identity and language (and even, in Hungary and Spam, their very name) rather than of the Roma themselves. The measures designed to achieve this could be brutal, and Roma sought to evade them wherever possible. Forced settlement with prohibition on travel was common; children remained vulnerable to forcible seizure by the state until recently (between 1926 and 1973 Switzerland's Pro Juventute organization took hundreds of Jenisch children to be reared by non-Gypsy families); in some countries Romanies were forbidden to marry one another. In Spain all male Roma were rounded up in June 1749 and sent to penal establishments and mercury mines; many died of exhaustion and disease, and some were not released for sixteen years. 

Strategies for Roma survival 
It is remarkable that the Roma have survived, given the harshness with which they have been treated throughout Europe. They subsisted on the geographical margins (border lands, remote or mountainous regions) and the economic margins of society, working among rural peasants or the urban poor as skilled craftsmen, itinerant smiths, musicians, peddlers, casual labourers and seasonal farm -workers. From the sixteenth century onwards, army commanders valued Rom smiths as makers and menders of weapons. Gypsies were illiterate and without books. But they possessed a rich heritage—valuable crafts and technical skills acquired in India or Byzantium (including weaving, smelting, making shot and basket-making); facility in music, dance and entertainment; a profound knowledge of the natural world and its free products to sell or transform for their own use. 

Roma learned to adapt quickly and with versatility to changed laws or circumstances, rapidly acquiring new crafts and means of earning an independent livelihood. Their widely attested love of children, close kinship bonds and social solidarity forged strong ties of loyalty and identity within their particular Roma grouping. Moreover, they could frequently count on support among the nobility and gentry, as well as among some elements of the local peasantry and urban working class, among whom they lived often harmoniously in 'cultural osmosis',(17) providing valued peripatetic services to settled populations. Indeed, it is known that numbers of gadze joined the Gypsies permanently. 

Survival mechanisms included: developing a financially independent 'culture of invisibility'; patterns of migrating and emigrating in search of work; flexible habits of seasonal nomadism; and temporary or longer-term settlement according to opportunities for employment. 

Roma in European culture 
From the late eighteenth century onwards there was some amelioration in attitudes towards Roma. Scholars, particularly philologists, began to appreciate the antiquity and rich provenance of Romani language and customs. The Romantic interest in the Volk awakened interest in Gypsies as a distinct 'people'. Romany instrumental music, song and dance became popular from Spain to Hungary; leading Rom musicians entertained aristocrats in Hungary and Russia, a few even marrying into the aristocracy. Numerous non- Gypsy composers, including Liszt, Bizet, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Bartok, were inspired by Gypsy music. Artists frequently painted romanticized portraits of Gypsies. 

Whereas earlier literature, particularly drama and clerical writing, had treated Roma with contempt, casting them in an entirely negative light, Goethe was one of the first to characterize a Romany chief as a 'noble savage'. While the semi-autobiographical novels of George Borrow, including Lavengro (1851) and Romany Rye (1857), drew on prolonged though ambiguous first-hand experience of Romanies as 'real' people, many nineteenth-century writers like Sir Walter Scott romanticized Gypsies or, conversely, portrayed them as lawless outcasts. In nineteenth-century France and elsewhere Roma were still banished or imprisoned simply for being Gypsies; in Germany children were forcibly removed to orphanages until the end of the century. Negative stereotypes abounded. (And still do: Gypsiologist Diane Tong recently wrote: 'Gypsies are often devalued as people at the same time that their arts are valued and imitated world-wide.'(18)) Yet during the nineteenth century some churches and humanitarian bodies began to grow aware of the increasing poverty of many Roma communities. 

Nineteenth-century developments 
While deep-seated prejudice remained widespread, some persecution from official sources lessened. Emancipation of Romany serfs and slaves in Wallachia and Moldavia was completed in 1864 and coincided with large migrations of diverse Romany tribes from the Balkans and Hungary. Exotic in appearance, speaking strongly Romanian- influenced dialects, the Kalderash and other occupation-based tribes emigrated to the Americas and settled widely throughout Europe, providing a marked contrast to the long-settled 'Gypsies' and today forming important subgroups of the Romany people. 

Yet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the influx of Rom into Europe triggered new outbreaks of anti-Gypsy legislation and prejudice, particularly within the German state, Switzerland and France, and led to widespread attempts to control Gypsy nomadism prior to the First World War.

13 Universal-Lexicon alter Wissenschaften und Künste (Eeipzig 1735), quoted in Angus Eraser, The Gypsies (Oxford and Cambridge, MA 1992), 190. For the historical section I am indebted to Fraser and to David M. Crowe, A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (Eondon 1995); cf. also Ian Hancock, The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution (Ann Arbor, MI 1987).
14 Nicolae Gheorghe and Thomas Acton, 'Dealing with multiculturality: minority, ethnic, national and human rights', OSCE ODIHR Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 1, 1995, 31. 
15 Marcel Courtiade, 'Quelques reperes psvch(olog)iques dans l'histoire des Roms de l'Est', in Claire Auzias, Les Families Roms d'Europe de l'Est (Paris 1995), 15-23. 
16 Quoted m Hancock, 33. 
17 Jcan-Pierre Liégeois, Gypsies and Travellers: Soeio-cultural Data, Socio-political Data (Strasbourg: CE 1987), 17. 
18 Tong,33. 

2/ The forgotten holocaust

Anti-Gypsy racism prior to the Jewish Holocaust 
The social Darwinism deriving from theories of Aryan racial superiority propagated by Richard Wagner, Count Gobineau (L'Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines, 1853-5) and Houston Stewart Chamberlain led to increased contempt for Roma. In 1876 Cesare Lombroso, in L'uomo delinquente, typified Roma as atavistic and criminal.(19) Decrees to deport or exclude foreign Roma and pressurize nomadic Roma to settle were passed in Germany at Bismarck's instigation. In 1899 research on Roma began in a Munich institute, later named the Central Office for Fighting the Gypsy Nuisance. The institute was created by the Bavarian police and was closed only in 1970.(20)

In 1906 the Prussian government issued a directive, 'Zur Bekampfung des Zigeunerunwesens' ('Combating the Gypsy nuisance'), listing bilateral agreements with nine neighbouring states on forcible expulsion of Roma from Prussia. A 1926 law aimed at 'Gypsies and the work-shy', described by Joachim Hohmann as 'a legally encoded requirement to destroy specific Gypsy culture',(21) forbade nomadism for families with school-age children, outlawed travelling in groups and curbed Gypsy ownership of animals. Further measures forbade the carrying of weapons and made fingerprinting and close police supervision of all Gypsies compulsory. 

Nazism and Roma 
The Nazi Party encouraged research into Roma genealogy. Dr Robert Ritter, who in 1936 founded what became the Racial Hygiene and Population Biology Research Unit of the Department of Health in Berlin, had by 1942 created files on 30,000 Sinti, Roma and part-Sinti in German territories. Nazi researchers regarded Roma, although 'Aryan' in origin, as asocial, -with 'a criminal element in their whole make-up',(22) and redefined them as 'non-Aryan'. Intermarriage with pure- or part-Roma was seen as a threat to the German nation; so too were their high birth-rate and alleged welfare costs. Ritter regarded Roma as primitive and mentally backward.(23) He recommended sterilization for all part-Sinti; his colleague, the racial scientist Eva Justin, recommended it for all Roma.

Persecution during the 1930s 
From 1934 onwards some German Gypsies were forced into policed settlements. In 1936 400 were sent to Dachau. In June 1936 a decree naming nomadic Gypsies 'a plague' required the compulsory expulsion of foreign Gypsies and intense controls over those with German citizenship. Late in 1938 the first racial law against Roma and Sinti, 'Fight against the Gypsy Menace', was enacted and in March 1939 passes were issued. These were grey for non-Gypsies, brown for pure Roma, brown with blue stripes for part-Roma (those with two or more Rom or Sinti great-great- grandparents—a stricter classification than for part- Jews). The 1938 law aimed explicitly at the 'racial separation' of Roma and Sinti from Germans, the prevention of miscegenation and tight control of all pure- and part-Roma and Sinti. 

Measures in the early 1940s 
In 1940, 3,000 German and Austrian Roma and Sinti were deported to Polish camps or ghettos; the remaining 27,000 continued to be forced into holding camps. Following the German occupation of Austria in 1938, Austrian Roma were sent to work camps, concentration camps (e.g. Ravensbruck, Mauthausen and Buchenwald) or to a special Roma camp in Lackenbach. Roma in territories annexed or conquered by Germany were subject to similar treatment. Some fascist governments allied to Germany (particularly Croatia, Slovakia and Romania) initiated persecution of Roma without apparent pressure from Germany.(24)

Roma in concentration camps and death camps 
The decision to annihilate all Roma was probably taken in mid-1942, after the Wannsee conference. But already by January 1942 several thousand Roma had been gassed in closed vans at Chelmno.(25) Because records are incomplete and the statistics disputed, estimates of the total number of Sinti, Roma and part-Sinti murdered in the Holocaust vary from 200,000-500,000. Auschwitz-Birkenau contained a special Roma camp, where families were kept together, probably in order to forestall revolt. At least 19,000 were murdered or died there.(26) Many Roma not allocated to the special camp also died in Auschwitz. Thousands of Romanies were killed in Belscn and Buchenwald and in extermination camps, including Belzec, Sobibor, Majdanek and Treblinka. Many were subjected to inhumane experimentation at Dachau (salt injections), Natzweiler (typhus injections), Sachsenhausen (mustard gas) and elsewhere. In Auschwitz Dr Mengele selected many Romanies, including children, for experimentation. Many Rom men, women and teenagers underwent forced sterilization. 

While over half of all German, Czech, Austrian, Latvian and Polish Roma died, some communities suffered even heavier losses. Virtually all Roma in Belgium, Holland, Estonia and Lithuania were annihilated, as were those in Croatia, where the Catholic-supported fascist Ustasa perpetrated mass atrocities against the Roma. Rom communities in the USSR, Romania, Serbia and Hungary each lost thousands, massacred by the Nazis. Donald Kenrick and other scholars point to documentation showing that the ultimate aim of the Nazis was the '"complete extermination" of the Roma people'.(27)

Long-term consequences on Roma of the Second World War 
These bald statements mask the prolonged anguish of Gypsy suffering—starvation, separation from loved ones, brutal treatment and inhumane degradation before an agonizing death. Those who survived the concentration camps were often physically maimed, always destitute, and usually bereft of all family. Even those who escaped the worst horrors of persecution endured years of terror followed by the large-scale forced migrations after the war. Pre-war patterns of relative integration had been shattered. Roma remained outcasts, often stateless and without papers, their suffering unacknowledged and without compensation from the German state. Many of today's problems faced by Europe's Roma are a direct long-term consequence of the war-time destruction of life, community and way of life. Moreover, it should be remembered that 'the Nazis' well-publicized persecution of Gypsies followed centuries of historical precedent by virtually all peoples of Europe'.(28) 

While there are recorded war-time incidents of 'righteous non-Gypsies' helping persecuted Roma,(29) no European government spoke out on behalf of the Roma, either before or during the war. The Catholic Church ignored their plight completely, although many Roma were Catholic. While a few Rom survivors began collecting their memories after the war, there was little documentation of the collective Gypsy fate until the mid-1960s when Jewish scholars committed themselves to gathering it. Only in September 1994, in Vienna, did the first international conference on the Nazi genocide of Roma take place.(30)

19 Fraser, 249. 
20 Hancock,61. 
21 Joachim Hohmann, Geschichte der ZigcHnerverfolgnng in Deutschland (Frankfurt and New York 1988), 81. 
22 Quoted in Donald Kenrick and Gratton Puxon, The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies (Eondon and Brighton 1972), 63 n33. A new edition of this book was published as Gypsies under the Swastika (Hatfield, Elertfordshire 1995). 
23 Fraser, 260. 
24 Donald Kenrick, 'The Nazis and the Gypsies: a fresh look', Jewish Quarterly, no. 156, winter 1994/5, 46. 
25 Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (Glasgow 1987), 254-67. 
26 See Kenrick and Puxon for a full account of Rom suffering during the Holocaust, esp. 140ft. on Auschwitz.
27 Donald Kenrick, 'Fetter to the editor', Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 1989, 251-4. 
28 William A. Duna, Gypsies. A Persecuted Race (Minneapolis 1984), quoted in long, 174. 
29 Kenrick, 'The Nazis and the Gypsies', 47; see also Kcnrick and Puxon. 
30 Mirella Karpati, 'L'altro Olocausto', in Lacio Drom (Rome), vol. 30, no. 6, November-December 1994, 17-20. 

3/ Parallels with and contrasts to the Jewish experience

Historical parallels with antisemitism 
Roma have much in common with Jews in their experience of persecution within Christian Europe. (There are, incidentally, Jewish Gypsies in Belarus and Sofia.) For both Roma and Jews, their suffering and annihilation in the twentieth century are the culmination of centuries of oppression, partly motivated by religious intolerance and racism. Some Rom leaders have noted the parallel. Nicolae Gheorghe recently commented: 'Gypsies are now the scapegoats as the Jews were before.'(31) Kurt Holl of Cologne stated in 1993: 'The East European Roma have today the same role as the Ostjuden early in this century.'(32) 

There are many historical parallels. Hostility towards Roma and Jews has similar roots—fear of the unknown, of religious difference; envy (of the Romanies' apparent freedom); hatred of 'the outsider'; mistrust of possible 'spies'; simple chauvinism and racism. Roma, like Jews, were attacked in sermons, books, drama and popular art, and thus demonized in the popular mind. (Stereotypes of the Gypsy woman or the Jewess as a dangerous seductress and of the male Gypsy or Jew as a dark sinister threat featured widely inliterature.) The spread of the Black Death in the fourteenth century was attributed by at least one nineteenth-century writer to both Gypsies and Jews.(33) Roma had their own 'blood libel', the myth that Gypsies abduct non-Gypsy children. Like Jews, Roma were subject to harsh fines and taxation and barred from numerous trades and legitimate economic practices. Historically, Jews migrated for similarly complex motives as Roma today—to escape persecution and improve their economic situation. Both Jews and Roma coped with suffering by distancing themselves inwardly from the oppressor, through jokes, songs and stories expressing ridicule. With significent exceptions, neither Jews nor Roma resorted as a people to armed struggle in defence of their cause. 

Contemporary parallels with antisemitism 
Like Jews of old, migrating or nomadic Roma are now herded into marginal ghettos and regarded as pariahs. In Western Europe exotic newcomers from Eastern Europe are often resented by long- established Gypsies, just as late nineteenth-century immigrant 'Ostjuden' were often resented by assimilated German and Austrian Jews. (Moreover, non-Jews who publicly opposed Jewish immigration into Britain also opposed that of Lovari Gypsies in the early twentieth century at the time of the first Aliens Act.(34)) 

Like Jews, Roma function as a litmus test of democratic society. Both Jews and Roma were without significant support from the churches before and during the Holocaust. Both are vulnerable in post-communist countries to the resurgence of pre-war stereotypes and myths, dormant under communism. Like Jews, Roma are victims of neo-fascism and ultra-nationalism. Both Jews and Roma have been targeted by skinheads and verbally attacked by ultra-nationalists. 

In some countries the 'Gypsy problem' is perceived as the dominant question, much like the pre-war 'Jewish problem'. Proposed 'solutions' to the 'Gypsy problem' echo earlier fascist 'solutions'. They include: segregation in public places; proposals to lower the birth rate; forced evictions from homes; forced expulsion from some countries; police curfews; discriminatory legislation. 

Contrasts to the Jewish experience 
There are, however, major differences between the victimization of Jews and that of Roma. The most evident of these is the existence of Israel. Prominent Romany leaders have stressed the vulnerability of Romanies in this regard. Rajko Djunc of Yugoslavia has said: '[Unlike Jews] we have no country and no powerful lobbies and politicians see no political capital in defending us.'(35) The German Rom leader, Romani Rose, lamented at the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of Kristallnacht: 'For Sinti and Rom there is no State of Israel. . . All Gypsies are in diaspora; but there is no ... national home, nor even any wide recognition of the nationhood of Romanies.'(36) There is no parallel today to Zionism. Pan-Gypsy visions of shared peoplehood or 'Romanistan' pale before the urgent, practical needs of European Roma. 

Other differences are internal—for example, Rom attitudes to education. Many Roma mistrust state education, following centuries of exclusion from school, rejection within school, state persecution and necessary reliance on their own resourcefulness. Roma educate their children thoroughly, on gender-based lines, within the family. From early on, fathers teach sons and mothers daughters, passing on skills, crafts and experience, encouraging the ability to take initiatives and decisions at an early age. Children aged eleven and twelve become part of the economic unit, contributing to the family's income. Meeting immediate needs through informally acquired skills and a flexible combination of trades has to take precedence over long-term investment in formal education. Freedom from dependence on wage labour is highly prized, facilitating mobility and a communal lifestyle. Children who do attend school face rejection by teachers and other pupils and often receive little encouragement from parents deeply suspicious—with good historical reason—of non-Gypsy society: 'The legacy of centuries of vilification and persecution . . . informs the living memory of Gypsies everywhere. The passionately held view of most Gypsies today is still that gadje are dangerous, not to be trusted, and, except for business dealings, to be avoided.'(37) 

Traditional antisemitic rhetoric has shifted on to the Gypsy, who is widely—and wrongly—perceived as a parasite, a criminal, a threat to stable society. Few positive images of the Romany now remain to counteract negative ones; in most of Europe, nineteenth-century romantic images of the Gypsy as a fancy-free rover or passionate performer of music or dance have long since evaporated, except in the theatre. The many strengths in Romany life—intense family love, loyalty and hospitality; courage in adversity; friendship and generosity; the constant warm presence of other Roma, including in sickness and old age (a Rom is rarelv alone); stringent cleanliness; collective joie de vivre—are simply unknown to the outsider. Despite the persistence of antisemitism, therefore, Roma are today considerably more unpopular in Europe than Jews. 

Until recently, Roma have been relatively disorganized. The many new Rom organizations were, and are, quite disunited, with little international co-ordination. Roma are without internationally known spokespeople, though national leaders are increasingly emerging on to the international scene. Whereas Jewish communities contain a disproportionate number of professionals and intellectuals, most Romanies remain illiterate. The few who become professionals often abandon their Romany identity. Moreover, there may be some correlation between the mass immigration of Roma into some regions and a rise in petty theft and burglary (directly related to high unemployment, reduced opportunities for self- employment, high birth rates and extreme poverty among Roma). Some of the main champions of Roma are prominent Jews. Former German Chancellor Helmut

 Schmidt for the first time publicly acknowledged the Romany holocaust in 1982 only after a Romany conference in Gottingen in the previous year, at which Jewish personalities, including Simon Wiesenthal, Heinz Galinski, Miriam Novitch and Donald Kenrick, had highlighted the war-time persecution of Roma.(38) The Slovakian Council of Christians and Jews has strongly supported local Roma.(39) In 1986 the Cologne branch of the Council of Jewish-Christian Understanding supported 100 destitute Romanies, including seventy children, forcibly evicted from Holland. Ignatz Bubis, leader of Germany's Jewish community, has spoken out strongly on behalf of Roma, as have Serge Klarsfeld and the organization Fils et filles de deportes de France. In the United States the new Romani-Jewish Alliance publishes regular newsletters. High-level Jewish-Roma contacts are increasing and bode well for the future.

31 The Times, 30 September 1992. 
32 Regards, June-August 1993; cf. Gilad Margalit, 'Antigvpsyism in the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany: a parallel with antisemitism?'. Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism no. 9 (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 1996).
33 Theodor Tetzncr, Geschichte dcr Zigeuner, ihre Herkunft, Natur und Art (Weimar and Ilmenau 1835), quoted in Hohmann, 50. 
34 Colin Holmes, 'The German Gypsy question in Britain, 1904- 6', Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. 1, no. 4, 1978, 248-67 (quoted in Tong, 177). 
35 International Herald Tribune, 31 July 1990. 
36 Regards, June-August 1993. 
37 Isabel Fonseca, 'Among the Gypsies', New Yorker, 25 September 1995,95. 
38 Regards, June-August 1993, 38; Donald Kenrick, 'The Romany
Gypsies of hurope', 1.
39 Tablet, 9 October 1993.

4/ Roma experience since the Second World War

Under communism 'People at all points of the political spectrum have wanted to change the Gypsies.'(40) This has been true of fascist, free-market capitalist, social democratic and communist governments. The Roma had at one time been free to enjoy a certain cosmopolitanism due to their peripatetic life-style (often in a radius of hundreds of miles) and disregard for national boundaries. This brought them under some suspicion m the new monolithic communist nation- states whose early sympathy and cultural and economic assistance to Roma as 'victims of capitalism' soon evaporated. Post-war communist governments compelled Roma to abandon nomadism. Use of the Romani language was discouraged. Forced assimilation caused a virtually complete sedentarization as well as the widespread loss of identity and traditional cultural values. Viable life-styles, developed over many decades and based on self-sufficiency and prized skills, were destroyed. Projects funded in some countries to improve educational standards and provide better housing, and compulsory employment in state factories and farms in Eastern Europe, which provided a safety net against destitution, could not compensate for the loss. A few Roma became leading communists, though they did not function as representatives of their people. 

Former communist regimes post-1989 
Lacking both education and land, Romanies were at a considerable disadvantage once communist structures began to disintegrate. While some who possessed entrepreneurial skills could grasp new opportunities for free trading, the majority found that their situation worsened in the infant market economy. Most Roma housing remains wretched, often isolated and without water, electricity or sanitation. Unemployment among Roma has risen dramatically (to 60 per cent for adult Roma in urban Bulgarian ghettos),(41) while those in employment often earn wages below subsistence level. The lifting of oppressive restrictions encouraged non-Gypsies, themselves prey to economic distress, to express open animosity towards Roma. Nicolae Gheorghe has stated: 'Before the revolution, only the police were violent to Romanies. Now the whole population can be.'(42) 

Unemployment has encouraged some young Roma to engage m petty crime, which in turn has increased anti-Gypsy sentiment. Unprecedented open nationalism, moreover, has focused latent racism sharply on Roma, kindling an irrational, centuries-old hatred, while Roma feel unprotected in the face of persistent skinhead intimidation and violence.

In the area of criminality, Romanies paradoxically act as scapegoats for populations facing political uncertainty, a sharp decline in their national economies and unprecedented financial insecurity. Since 1989 large-scale crime and fraud have increased massively. Former members of the nomenclatura and security forces, indigenous mafia gangs and international crime syndicates appear to be involved. Existing juridical systems are largely powerless to investigate and prosecute. Yet the alleged disproportionate increase in petty crime attributable to Roma is often tackled by mob violence with impunity and by draconian measures by police and local authorities. (Police commonly attribute assaults against Roma to local feuds rather than to their root cause—racism.) Anger against Roma can thus serve to deflect widespread popular anger and frustration at less visible—and far more powerful—non-Gypsy criminals.(43)

Post-war Western Europe 
In Western Europe nomadism, although permitted by law and remaining considerably more widespread than in Central and Eastern Europe, grew progressively more difficult following the Second World War as central governments increased control over marginal groups. Legislation was enacted in several countries to settle nomadic Gypsies permanently on authorized sites, particularly during the 1960s (at a time, paradoxically, when many non-Gypsies were buying caravans and becoming seasonally peripatetic, holidaying at municipal and private sites specifically closed to Gypsies). 'Steps taken without consulting the Gypsy populations often proved unsuitable, and failed to solve the problems of cohabitation with the majority population.'(44)

 Gypsies wishing to remain nomadic or semi- nomadic, or unable to find space on official sites, face harassment and often violent eviction from temporary and unauthorized sites. (The burgomaster of Ghent became involved in a campaign to evict twenty Gypsy families from the city.(45)) Many still endure unsanitary living conditions, often on 'discarded land' close to motorways or industrial areas or under power- generating pylons.(46) Roma have little access to health care, and only 30 per cent of Romany children in the EU attend school regularly. Drug abuse is a new but pressing problem among young Roma in Spain and elsewhere.(47)

Economic changes following the Second World War affected the traditional livelihoods of Gypsies. In rural economies they had enjoyed financial independence and a modest living in a variety of peripatetic occupations (including fairground and circus work, basket weaving, tinkering, peddling and horse trading). Rapid industrialization, agricultural mechanization, rural decline and the increasing difficulty of remaining nomadic resulted ' in the loss of long-standing seasonal occupations. Mounting bureaucracy rendered some traditional areas of economic activity impossible for illiterate Roma. Many were therefore forced to seek unskilled or semi-skilled work in towns and cities. Technological advances in industry and recessions during the 1980s reduced the availability of such work, forcing some sedentary Gypsies for the first time into unemployment and social welfare benefits. (Nomadic Gypsies are commonly unable to draw welfare benefits, due to their peripatetic life-style.) This has underpinned widespread anti- Gypsy slurs in the media which perpetuate public negative stereotypes. Anti-Gypsy racism, far from being restricted to a lunatic fringe or the far right, is almost universal. 

Ecological and community values within Romany life 
Gypsy culture and history are little known among the general public. This has led to a remarkable paradox. Romany values and life-styles, when associated with ethnic groups outside Europe, were idealized during the 1970s and 1980s—'small is beautiful'; community life; 'sustainable living in ecological balance with nature'; the use of herbal healing; the recycling of waste materials; owning minimal material possessions; 'learning from the ancient wisdom' of indigenous and illiterate peoples; non-individualistic and interdependent group living in extended, multi-generational families; profound knowledge of animals and the natural world. 

Yet the one ethnic people within Europe who had actually lived such values and life-styles for centuries, with dignity despite intense suffering, was ignored. Roma remained despised outcasts, regarded contemptuously as deviants or paupers, increasingly forced from rural areas into urban shanty-towns, from self-sufficiency into dependency, from traditional crafts and occupations into the most arduous menial jobs and unemployment. Throughout Europe, the social fabric of Gypsy life has been damaged, as large family groups, cohesive and mutually supportive, have been broken apart by dispersal into small housing units, often far from possible sources of work. 

Roma nomadism and migration 
Today, as Western Europe's internal borders dissolve, some long-settled Roma are reviving purposeful nomadism, often in large family groups. As many as one in ten of Europe's Romanies may cross national borders each year. (One Rom leader, Rudko Kawczinsky, has recently argued: 'Romanies are, after all, the only true Europeans.')(48) While there is some migration northwards among Spain's 400,000 Roma, migration within mainland Europe is generally westwards. Jean-Pierre Liegcois has estimated that, although they rarely use caravans, some 30 per cent of Europe's Roma are internally nomadic within their own countries, while 30 per cent are semi-nomadic (travelling for only part of the year) and 40 per cent more or less permanently settled.(49)

Renewed nomadism, both within and between states, stems partly from fear of persecution and growing anti-Gypsy hostility and violence, particularly from neo-Nazis, skinheads and police. Other causes include the need to search for work and to escape endemic poverty and ill-health and fear of increasing nationalism. But the migrations themselves have led to intensified hostility to Roma, forced repatriation and the new media myth of a possible 'Gypsy invasion'. The reality is that proportionately fewer Roma than non-Gypsies migrated from Central and Eastern Europe between 1946 and the late 1980s; since 1960 about 250,000 Roma have emigrated to Western Europe.(50)

Religious revivalism among Roma 
Partly as a survival tactic, most Roma have traditionally subscribed to the locally dominant religion, whether Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim. Within this outer framework, animist beliefs and practices have subsisted hand-in-hand with informal elements of Christian or Muslim piety and observance. But, since 1952, unprecedented religious enthusiasm has swept through Rom communities. The Light and Life evangelical Gypsy pentecostal movement claims 8,000 members in Britain and 150,000 in France,(51) where there are 500 Rom preachers, 60 places of worship and a Rom Bible school. Thirty per cent of all Spanish Gypsies have become 'alleluyas', members of a similarly charismatic pentecostal form of Christianity, dubbed by Spanish Romanies the Church of Philadelphia.(52)

This new, strongly Bible-based Romany pentecostalism fosters Gypsy culture and political solidarity. 'It is a new type of movement which unites across traditional divisions . . . sustains resistance to pressure from the environment. . . through its Gypsy dynamism . . . [and] is a source of originality and a mainspring of change.'(53) Thomas Acton wrote that the Gypsy evangelical church 'does not teach its converts to be ashamed of being Romani ... [It is] instrumental in turning the different Gypsy ethnic groups from an atavistic tribalism towards a general Romani nationalism.'(54) 

The new Roma churches also bring more intangible benefits, paralleling the Methodist revival in terms of fervent spirituality and puritanism (e.g. their opposition to drugs and fortune-telling).(55) The Roma religious revival is already having a major impact on encouraging literacy and the acquisition of education, and developing leadership. Perhaps, too, at long last, the mainstream churches may become active on behalf of Roma (Pope John Paul II symbolically used Romani in his Christmas message in 1994). 

Urgent needs of the Roma people today 
Rom intellectuals have recently emerged as activists and articulate spokespeople, both nationally and internationally. Roma organizations have been developed in both Western and Eastern Europe. Some governments and several international agencies have recently undertaken programmes to address the dire social and educational problems faced by Europe's Gypsies (cf. Roma, European institutions and NGOs, pp. 36-9). Some state finance for Romani newspapers, language teaching and theatre is now available in Slovakia and elsewhere. 

Yet, despite being archetypal 'free marketeers', Roma remain a powerless minority, the most vulnerable and poorest of Europe's peoples within the new market economy. Because Roma are largely unprotected by international law, most countries still have no national laws to protect them. They are in urgent need of measures, drawn up in consultation with Roma representatives, to protect them from violence and to improve their living conditions, health, education and housing in ways which will enable them to retain as much of their independence, rich social organization and distinctive culture as possible. But any measures that are taken must be sensitive to the historically rooted suspicion among Gypsies of non-Gypsy intervention and to the need to establish mutual understanding between local Gypsies and non- Gypsies. 

A leading expert who has travelled widely in Europe summed up the situation thus: 

The Gypsies are on a powder keg which may explode at any time. But the situation is not as clear-cut as it was in the 1930s for the Jews. On the surface all seems well. The Queen of Spain attended the first European Romany Congress in Barcelona. The Slovak government has upgraded the Romanics to a national minority. A Gypsy folk group is invited to perform at the National Folk Festival in the main stadium in Budapest. No one is asking the Gypsies to wear the sign or banning them from buses. 

Yet not so far below the surface there is prejudice and hate, fanned by government ministers, right-wing leaders and local politicians. A high percentage of the population in every country place Gypsies as their most disliked group, the ones they would like to expel (if another country would take them). Within living memory not just the Germans but Croats, Slovaks, Hungarians and Romanians killed Romanics in wired camps and the forests. It is not surprising that in many towns and villages Gypsies live in fear of attack from their neighbours as they are made the scapegoat for the economic crises.(56) 

40 Tong,251.
41 A. Reynlers, OECD, 1993, quoted in "The situation of Gypsies (Roma and Sinti) in Europe', CDMG, CE, May 1995, 7. 
42 The Times, 30 September 1992.
43 See Toni Sonneman, secretary of the Romani-Jewish Alliance: 'The media portray the Romanies as generic "suspects" in the rising tide of crime and black marketecring', quoted by Donald Kenrick in Report for Association of Gypsy Organizations (privately circulated), June 1995. 
44 "The situation of Gypsies (Roma and Sinti) in huropc', 5. 
45 IRR European Race Audit, November 1995. 
46 Europe, October 1989. 
47 Gitanos v Drogas (Madrid: Secretariado General Gitano 1978).
48 Die Zeit, 7 September 1990. 
49 Liegeois, Gypsies and Travellers, 24. 
50 CDMG (Strasbourg 1995), 19. 
51 Guardian, 3 May 1995. 
52 Independent on Sunday Magazine, 11 February 1995. 
53 Liégeois, Gypsies and Travellers, 62-3. 
54 Thomas Acton, 'The Gypsy evangelical church', Ecumenical Review, vol. 31, no. 1, July 1979, 289-95 (quoted Tong, 256). 
55 Olivier Lucazeau, 'Unc foi à soulever les Tziganes', Le Monde, 22 August 1990.
56 Donald Kenrick, private communication, 13 November 1995. 

5/ The position of Roma in various European countries

Albania 
Total population: 3.2 million 
Roma population: 90,000-100,000 (MRG (see footnote 1)) 

Although under communism Roma lived virtually segregated from other Albanians and faced major economic problems, many had employment and there was no special discrimination against them. Albanian leader Enver Hoxha spoke of Roma positively.(57) 

Since 1989 their situation has worsened relative to the rest of the population. Land where they had traditionally lived for decades on the outskirts of towns and villages has been reclaimed under privatization. Many live in hovels made of corrugated iron or in tents. The majority are unemployed, even in the capital Tirana. Those who do have work are commonly employed in heavy labour, such as street cleaning, or on municipal rubbish dumps, at below subsistence wages.(58) 

Poverty among Roma can be extreme, exacerbated by the large average number of dependants (many families have eight or more children). The government has done little to ease Roma suffering. In Gjirokastra primitive homes were built for 300 Roma, without access to telephone or medical facilities; yet these were preferable to hovels or tents, and the Roma were apparently content. 

Hostility towards Roma has intensified since 1989. Peasants, especially those who have again become landowners, regard them with contempt. Many Roma are now charged exorbitant rent for land given to them long ago and become indigent as a result. There has been sporadic anti-Gypsy violence. In 1991 many Roma families in Berati were flooded out twice, losing their shacks and all their possessions. The entire community is unemployed. The government provided a small amount of aid—but non-Roma residents demanded that it be withdrawn. Some Roma were robbed and injured, a few threatened with death.(59) Elsewhere, two young Roma were shot by police in separate incidents in 1993 and 1994.(60)

Austria 
Total population: 7.9 million 
Roma population: 20,000-25,000 (MRG) 

The contemporary scene 
Some Austrian Roma, including Kalderash and Beash, immigrated from 1965 onwards; long- established groups, including Hungarian Roma, have been sedentary since Empress Maria-Theresa's 1762 edict; and Sinti and Lovari remained semi- nomadic until the 1960s.(61) Long-established Roma and Sinti have been regarded as Austrian citizens since 1945, while citizenship can be acquired by newer arrivals only by marriage to an Austrian. Only 5,000 of Austria's Roma population have been included in the new category of 'official minority' since 1983. Many Romanian Roma have passed through Austria en route to Germany and the United States. In addition, over 30,000 Roma refugees from Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia have migrant worker status; those without work can stay for three-month periods on tourist visas. Roma refugees are still arriving in Austria. 

Legal recognition 
Austria recognized Roma and Sinti as an ethnic minority group only in 1994, following increased political activity by three Roma organizations formed in 1991. Since December 1993 Roma and Sinti have been entitled to set up their own councils. 

Socio-economic problems 
The standard of living for Roma is low, life expectancy shorter than average, and birth rate high (3-7 children per family). Only 10 per cent complete compulsory education, while girls normally leave school at the age of eleven or twelve.(62) The majority are very poor, demoralized and isolated because of the wide gap in standard of living between Roma and most Austrians, and because anti-Gypsy sentiment is particularly strong in Austria. A scheme to pay students a small stipend to teach Gypsy children in small groups has been in operation in several centres, but its funding is insecure.(63) 

Recent violence 
Although media portrayals of Roma are largely favourable, anti-Gypsy prejudice is growing and can be violent. On 3-4 February 1995 a mock gravestone urging Gypsies to return to India was placed at the entrance to an underpass leading to a Roma encampment at Oberwart, Burgenland. (Obcrwart, home to Austrian Roma who survived the Nazi period, is near Lackenbach, the former concentration camp for Roma en route to Auschwitz.) When four Roma attempted to remove it, a huge explosion occurred; all were killed. (Police were later criticized for initially claiming that the men had blown themselves up or killed one another in a blood feud.) The so-called Bavarian Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the murders. Later vigils at the site of the deaths and elsewhere were disrupted by skinhead violence; again police were criticized for having failed to protect the vigils.(64)

Bulgaria 
Total population: 8.9 million 
Roma population: 576,927 (official statistics 1989) 
700,000-800,000 (MGR)(65) 

History 
Roma have had a stable and significant presence in Bulgaria since the fourteenth century. Divided by the Turks into mainly nomadic Muslims and mainly settled Christians, they were 'relegated ... to the lowest rung of the Ottoman social ladder'.(66) They were subject to special taxes but had some autonomy. While Muslims may have regarded Muslim Roma as schismatics, Orthodox Christian Bulgarians held strong prejudices against Roma. In the 1860s some bishops declared alms-giving to them to be a 'great sin'.(67) Laws were passed after Bulgaria's reunification in 1886 to combat Roma nomadism and to prevent Rom immigration.(68) Discrimination against Bulgaria's Roma (134,844 in the 1926 census) existed under the monarchy (1878- 1946) and Roma were traditionally assigned 'lowest-status occupations', such as road- sweeping.(69) Literacy increased to 8 per cent due to the provision of two or three primary schools. Roma publications and societies, founded in the 1920s, flourished until the rise of fascism in 1934. 

Despite fascist press attacks on them, Roma remained relatively unscathed by the Second World War, due partly to support from King Boris and to Bulgaria's long-standing multi-ethnicity. (Germany's war-time ambassador in Sofia commented on Bulgaria's refusal to deport Jews: 'The Bulgarians have lived for too long with peoples like Armenians, Greeks and Gypsies to appreciate the Jewish problem.(70) 

Under communism 
Following a brief post-war renaissance of Roma culture and organization after the Soviet occupation of Bulgaria, the increasingly Stalinist government adopted a policy in the 1950s of expelling Muslim Roma to Turkey and assimilating all other Roma, suppressing their distinctive ethnic and cultural identity. The Gypsy Theatre Roma was closed in 1953. Between 1953 and 1959 the government forced nomadic Roma to settle permanently. New segregated Gypsy ghettos were created for these Roma. Measures were taken in the early 1960s to assimilate the far larger number of sedentary Roma. All Roma with Turkish or Muslim names were required to take Bulgarian names. Gypsy music was banned from radio and television and its public performance discouraged by fines. Attempts were made to disperse compact Roma communities by placing families in Bulgarian quarters. Roma were forbidden to speak Romani in public and to create distinctively Roma organizations. Roma serving in the military were commonly assigned to labour brigades and allocated the most menial tasks. 

The assimilation campaign under President Todor Zhivkov achieved some positive results. Living conditions and housing improved for many Roma, and educational opportunities rose, though still remaining substantially lower than for Bulgarians. But 'the practical implication of these policies was the destruction of Roma self-identity through continued forced integration and Bulgarization'.(71) 

Post-1989: Rom organizations 
Since 1989 several Rom political organizations have been created, notably ROMA, the Democratic Union of Roma, founded in 1990. Roma remain politically weak, however, having been denied the right to create a political party prior to the 1990 election. Factors hindering Roma from becoming a strong political force include the division between Muslim and Christian Roma, the fifty or more Romani dialects and various clan and tribal allegiances. A national lobby, the United Roma Federation (URF), was created in October 1992. In December 1993 the URF, ROMA and Rom intellectuals complained to the government about the activities of Father Gelemenov and his Vazrazhdane organization and media coverage given to their pro-Nazi views. Gelemenov has publicly advocated that Bulgaria should 'subordinate' its Gypsy and Turkish minorities.(72)

Discrimination 
According to Helsinki Watch, 'Gypsies in Bulgaria continue to be discriminated against by the government, and are denied some of the most basic human rights'.(73) Vassil Chaprazov, chairman of the URF, has said: 'We are at the bottom of Bulgarian society . . . the most disadvantaged people are Gypsies.'(74) Main areas of discrimination include housing, education and employment.

Housing 
Most Roma live in squalid areas of larger towns and cities such as Sliven, which may house up to 50,000 Roma.(75) Many roads in Gypsy quarters are unpaved, with infrequent refuse collection. Dwellings often have no access to running water or adequate sanitation. The birth rate is substantially higher than that of the Bulgarian population. Most Roma quarters are severely overcrowded, with three or four families sharing one house and five or six sleeping in each room. Current land privatization schemes seem likely to exacerbate these problems. 

Education and socio-economic problems 
Many Roma children are educated in segregated technical schools which produce goods commissioned by local industry. Educational opportunities and attainments are low, and few Roma children complete secondary school, although the reasons for this include the fact that Bulgarian is their second language, early marriage and the failure of illiterate Roma parents to support adequate schooling. 

Poverty among Roma is growing. Gypsies queue at soup kitchens in Sofia, and there are many Gypsy beggars. Unemployment is high, though lower than in some East European states. Some traditional crafts have disappeared because of the assimilation campaign, while access to many jobs is limited by low educational levels and work-place prejudice (fuelled by the state media which stereotype Roma as criminals and black marketeers). No political party defends the interests of Roma, and they are prohibited from forming their own parties. In 1993, however, the Confederation of Roma in Bulgaria was established, to 'assist the legislative and executive powers in solving Gypsy problems'.(76) There is now at least one declared Rom in parliament. 

Anti-gypsyism 
Public hostility to Roma has been increasing since 1989. Racist articles now appear in the press. Some are aimed at Gypsies; 'Sofia News', for example, claimed that all Gypsies are thieves and, sometimes, murderers. A 1992 survey showed that 89.5 per cent of Bulgarians, 71.8 per cent of Turks and 74 per cent of Bulgarian Muslims did not want their children to attend a class with Roma children; 81.7 per cent of Bulgarians, 54.2 per cent of Turks and 57.2 per cent of Muslims said they would not vote for a Rom.(77) Bulgarian sociologists have suggested that antipathy to Roma in Bulgaria is comparable to hostility among Americans to blacks in the 1960s. Surveys have shown that Roma are far more disliked than other minorities. They are widely, and unfairly, blamed for Bulgaria's marked increase in crime. Legal moves to criminalize the black market, in which Roma are prominent, are partly responsible for the fact 80 per cent of Bulgaria's prison population are Roma.(78) 

Violence 
Recently anti-Gypsy violence has erupted, possibly orchestrated by the far right. In 1993 there were many attacks on Gypsies, including one in Cherganova led by the mayor. In Pleven local skinheads announced that they would 'cleanse the town of communists, Jews, Gypsies and the rich'. Skinheads held a rally in Sofia; banners read 'Turn the Gypsies into soap'.(79) In December 1993 an attack on Roma in Malorad left seven wounded and one dead. In February 1994 villagers in Doino Belotintsi demanded the expulsion of all Roma after a Rom deserter murdered a villager. Seventeen of the twenty families were expelled. One Rom died and fifteen were injured in an arson attack on a market district of Sofia in April 1995.(80) 

Police have been implicated in anti-Gypsy violence, and Roma held in custody are often ill treated.(81) Four died in police custody, including one in Pleven after alleged torture, and another in Sliven in March 1995.(82) Ill-treatment and torture of Roma at police hands have allegedly occurred in Dubova, Stara Zagora, Glushnik and Pazardzhik.(83) 

Roma in Rakitova (Plovdiv) were attacked in January 1995 by non-Roma residents and police. Four Roma were badly wounded by gunfire, and fifteen were severely beaten by police. In an open letter the Roma of Plovdiv complained: 'We are treated worse than dogs, deprived of human rights.'(84) An arson attack on a Roma house near Sofia on April 1995 left one dead and fifteen injured. Shortly afterwards, the interior ministry officially condemned attacks on Roma by skinheads, as well as xenophobia and antisemitism.(85) 

Romani was taught in Bulgarian schools from 1991. However, according to the press. Education Minister Dr Ilcho Dimitrov announced in April 1995 that teaching of Romani would henceforth be discouraged, being 'an obstacle to the acquisition of the Bulgarian language'.(86) After protests by Roma organizations, he retracted this statement.

Czech Republic 
Total population: 10.4 million 
Roma population: 145,738 
(local authority statistics 1989) 
250,000-300,000 (MRG) 

Romany population statistics in the Czecho-Slovak region are confused. Estimates vary from 400,000 to 800,000 in total. At least 150,000-300,000 Roma are in the Czech Republic, forming the second largest minority.(87) Czechoslovak Romanies speak one of three Romani dialects; most also speak Slovak or Hungarian. Before 1991 Roma had been allowed to register on censuses only as Czechs, Slovaks or Hungarians.(88) In the 1991 census Roma could for the first time declare themselves as Romany. Only 114,116 chose to do so.(89) However, even local authority statistics suggest a considerably higher figure. 

History 
Anti-Gypsy legislation began in 1541 and intensified under Leopold I (1657-1705), who expelled all Roma from Habsburg lands on pain of death. Emperor Charles VI (1711-40) ordered the execution of all Romanies. In 1740 any Roma entering Bohemia were to be executed. Empress Maria Theresa (1740-80) sought compulsory assimilation: Romani was forbidden; so were nomadic travel, horse-trading, Romany dress and the institution of the vajda, the Rom leader. Children aged from seven to twelve were placed with non-Gypsy farmers. Emperor Joseph II (1780- 90) ordered the settlement of Romanies in rural ghettos. Some nomadism returned after his death. Repressive legislation and close control by the authorities persisted into the twentieth century.(90)

Of 13,000 Roma in Bohemia and Moravia, 90 per cent were killed during the Nazi period. In Slovak territories Romanies fared better; of approximately 80,000, 1,000 perished.(91) Most survived in harsh conditions. Nomadic Roma were forcibly settled, and settled Romanies forcibly evicted from homes near frequented roads. Following the war, the Czechoslovak government relocated large numbers of Slovak Roma to northern Czech territories to work as unskilled labourers in heavy industry, following the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans.(92)

Under communism 
Once communists had seized power in February 1948 they 'did not recognize the Roma as a nationality and pursued a policy meant to destroy Romany identity through social integration'.(93) Roma were to be compulsorily assimilated. Nomadism was forbidden in 1958, punishable by six to thirty-six months' imprisonment. Travel for Roma was severely restricted. Romani language and traditions were suppressed. Rom organizations established during the 'Prague Spring' of 1968 were closed in 1973. From the mid-1970s many Rom women were paid to be, or tricked into being, sterilized.(94) Unemployment was high, although relatively generous welfare benefits brought some security.(95) Many children were forcibly placed in government children's homes. 

Post-1989 
Following the 'velvet revolution' of November 1989, anti-Gypsy discrimination in laws and policies ceased at a national level. Rom culture and language revived; Roman; newspapers and a theatre were established; cultural centres and six Rom political organizations were created. Roma can now openly declare their Rom identity. Rom parties and organizations such as the Romany Democratic Congress were founded and have openly criticized government policies towards Roma. They suffered electoral defeat in the 1992 elections due to political apathy and lack of a united front; no Rom representatives were elected to the Czech or Slovak parliaments. 

The Bill of Fundamental Rights and Liberties (January 1991) outlawed discrimination and granted all nationalities the right to use ethnic languages in official business and education. Yet discrimination remains widespread at local level. Roma do not have equal access to housing, education or public and private services.(96)

Crime and unemployment 
A major source of public hostility stems from the soaring crime rate, for which Roma are partly responsible. Although only 2 per cent of the population, they account for 11 per cent of all crime and over 50 per cent of burglary and pick- pocketing.(97) Gypsy crime has increased because of massive unemployment. Unskilled and untrained, Roma were predominantly manual labourers under the communist regime. Economic reforms forced many enterprises to lay off workers. Roma became unemployed in disproportionate numbers, especially in Slovakia. From 1990 many Slovak Roma migrated in search of work to Bohemia and Moravia, Czech industrial regions, staying either in overcrowded apartments with relatives or empty state-owned flats.(98) Unemployment among Roma now reaches 40-50 per cent.(99) 

Demography 
Rom birth-rates are very high—5.8 children per woman in 1971-80, dropping to 4 per woman in 1986-90. Four-fifths of Roma are under 34, compared to 55 per cent of Czechoslovaks. Life expectancy is low, comparable to that of Czechs in the 1930s.(100) It has been estimated that by 2000- 2005 Roma could number nearly 8 per cent of the population of the Czech and Slovak republics.(101) 

Violence 
The sudden influx of Slovak Roma has triggered serious anti-Gypsy violence by skinheads since early 1990, particularly in northern Bohemia. The killings of four young Roma in separate incidents (three involving skinhead aggression) in August am September 1993 led to the formation of HOST, the Citizens' Solidarity and Tolerance Movement. 

In 1994 racist attacks tripled from the previous year, and nearly all acts of racial violence recorded were against Roma. Attacks by skinheads on Roma occurred in Prague, Prerov, Ostrava, Brno (one Rom was stabbed to death) andjablonec nad Nisou (a young girl and her mother were burnt by a Molotov cocktail). Skinheads held a rally at Jablonec nad Nisou to oppose 'Gypsy terror', and at Karlovy Vary shouted 'Gypsies to the gas chambers'. Between 1990-94 skinheads murdered at least sixteen Roma; the best organized skinhead group of streetfighters, the Naziskins, demand the expulsion of all Roma and Jews from Czech soil.(102) One Rom died in police custody. In 1995 at least nine acts of racial violence against Roma occurred, including several stabbings and one murder; skinheads were involved in some of the attacks.(103) 

Housing 
In Most (Bohemia) some 600 non-rent-paying Rom families are being moved to a new low-grade settlement of small concrete houses, with only 3 square metres allocated per person, and multiple families sharing a bath and toilet. (They had been forcibly moved to Most in the 1980s to provide labour for local industry. Unused to modern facilities, some had damaged their houses.) Other authorities are considering copying the Most project. In Karvina near Ostrava 200 Rom families have been homeless for several months, having lost their Czech citizenship in June 1994 and thus their right to state benefits. Many live by rummaging in dustbins for food and clothing. 

Education 
At least 30 per cent of Roma are illiterate. Only 15 per cent complete primary school. Twenty per cent of Rom children are transferred to special schools for the mentally handicapped.(104) Recently new projects have been developed to train teachers of Roma children and to create preparatory classes in nursery, primary and special schools.(105) 

Politics 
The extremist Association for the Republic- Czechoslovak Republican Party, which won nearly 7 per cent of votes in the 1992 elections, campaigns against Roma and attracts skinheads to its ranks. It has 40,000 members in northern Bohemia alone. Miroslav Sladek, its founder and leader, called on all Czech mayors, in February 1993, to expel all Roma from their territories, offering a new car to the most successful. The party claims that Czech Roma operate a mafia. Party spokesman Jan Vik has stated: 'We will simply liquidate the [Gypsy] mafia. It is necessary to strike very forcefully.'(106) 

Roma are politically isolated, with few notable Czech supporters. Most who work on their behalf are not themselves Czech. President Havel has condemned racism in general, but has not recently specifically named Roma as victims; nor has the Catholic Church spoken on their behalf.(107) 

Discrimination 
Whereas there is widespread sympathy for non- Romany ethnic minorities (Kazakhs, Volhynian Czechs etc.), 65 per cent of Czechs are hostile to Roma.(108) Magdalena Babicha, a beauty contest finalist in April 1993, caused a public outcry when she expressed a widely shared wish to cleanse Czechoslovakia of Gypsies. 

Roma are commonly forbidden access to pubs, restaurants and other public places. In northern regions signs saying 'Gypsies forbidden' are widespread.(109) In the June 1992 elections a far-right anti-Gypsy campaigner won 15 per cent of the votes. In October 1992 'death squadrons' threatened 'reprisals' against Roma unless the authorities acted against them.(110) Subsidies to Rom organizations were suspended by the ministry of .culture in August 1993. There are unconfirmed rumours that in Prague a play called 'Romanies and Juliet', showing Roma as pimps and prostitutes, had a brief run in October 1994. 

Legal discrimination 
In October 1992 the northern Bohemian town of Jirkov passed a decree intended to curb the growing crime rate. It ordered heavy fines for actions endangering the morals, health and security of others, immediate eviction without judicial approval and other penalties. This law was criticized as discriminating particularly against Roma. 

The Law on Extraordinary Measures was proposed on 30 December 1992 by the prosecutor-general as a means of curbing 'undisciplined groups of migrants', identified as predominantly Roma. The law was intended to prevent proliferation of local ordinances such as thejirkov decree. But Rom leaders argue that skinheads who break the law are prosecuted less vigorously than Roma, while the Republican Party has called for the chief prosecutor to be sacked on the grounds that she thinks only 'of the protection and privilege of Gypsies'.(111)

Citizenship laws 
Between 80 and 90 per cent of Roma on Czech soil in early 1994 had Slovak nationality, due to their forced mass migration from Slovakia into Czech regions after the Second World War and under communism, and to the voluntary migration for economic reasons of thousands, mostly from impoverished rural areas to Czech areas, in 1992 and early 1993.(112) 

In 1994 the Czech government introduced a new citizenship law which was heavily criticized by the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), US senators and the international media. It met with little internal opposition, however, apart from that of the Citizens' Solidarity and Tolerance Movement (HOST) and Rom leaders, who condemned it as discriminatory against Roma. In November 1994, HOST held a candle-lit commemoration of Kristallnacht in Prague; invited Rom speakers condemned the citizenship law. 

To obtain Czech nationality by 1 July 1994, Roma and other ethnic minorities had to prove that they had spent the last two years on Czech soil, that they could speak Czech and that they had no criminal record for the previous five years. They also had to renounce their Slovak status. Moreover, whereas Czechs could gain citizenship without problems, even native-born Roma faced barriers, including the need to produce expensive legal documents. These conditions have proved insurmountable for many Roma. Many cannot prove residence because they have stayed with relatives. Some have a criminal record simply because of the harsh penalties imposed on Roma. 

Those who fail to acquire Czech nationality will receive no permanent residence permit, and therefore no entitlement to medical care or social security, housing or education. They will be regarded as illegal aliens, subject to forcible deportation to Slovakia. (The Czech government already intends to deport Rom children in Czech orphanages to Slovakia.) But many of those deported would already have renounced their Slovak citizenship in their bid to become Czech citizens, or would in any case not be entitled to Slovak citizenship, resulting, according to British lawyer Tom Gross, in Roma becoming stateless.(113) 

Moreover, a November 1994 report by the Tolerance Foundation based on interviews with ninety-nine individual Slovaks and Roma living in the Czech Republic showed that nearly 50 per cent of Roma without Czech citizenship were born in the Czech Republic and were life-long residents. Ninety-three were de facto stateless, having neither Czech citizenship nor Slovak identification papers or citizenship. All ninety-nine were without permanent residence permits.(114) In Karvina 186 people, nearly all Roma, were stripped of their legally acquired Czech citizenship because they were accused of bribing a Czech official; their welfare benefits were withdrawn.(115) 

Hopeful signs 
Individual projects launched in 1994-5 included local council summer camps for children (Pardubice, Kourím); adapted school curricula for primary children (Ostrava); a summer seminar for teachers on Romany education (Dobrichovice); and a theatre exchange programme with a group in' Boston, Massachusetts, comparing Black and Romany experience. Across the country MENT, an educational organization, is running seminars on Romani language and culture for teachers of Romany children. Pardubice has opened a nursery to teach pre-school Romany children Czech and ' has established a fund to support the best Romany secondary school pupils. With Ústí nad Labem, Pardubice has formed an institute for the study of Romany culture. Prague University now runs a Romani course, and a Romany museum has opened in Brno. 

In May 1995 the first memorial to Czech Roma interned in Nazi transit camps was unveiled at Lety. The ceremony was attended by President Havel, who admitted for the first time Czech complicity in the extermination of thousands of Roma in Auschwitz and other camps.(116) In September 1995 an international Rom festival was held in Stráznice with 300 performers and an audience of over 1,000. 

Outlook 
Future economic difficulties are likely to increase attacks on Romanies. In 1995 train fares rose steeply, state-controlled property rents rose by between 17 and 32 per cent, and other predicted problems include rising unemployment and widespread corruption. If public discontent increases, Romanies are a ready scapegoat, particularly if, due to withdrawal of benefits, more Roma turn to petty crime.

France 
Total population: 57.9 million 
Roma population: 280,000-340,000 (MRG) 

Due to France's traditions of cultural unity, mono- lingualism and centralized politics, Manouches and other Gypsies (Tsiganes') are not treated as an ethnic minority. As in Britain, identity is determined by nomadic life-style, not cultural or ethnic bonds. Although nomadism is a legally recognized right, successive French governments have favoured sedentarization as the best way to reduce marginalization of Gypsies. Thus the main law affecting nomads, the act of 3 January 1969, was rigorous, requiring all itinerant and non- sedentary people to carry a carnet, a circulation pass-book, at all times. This had to be regularly stamped by municipalities, and can still be a source of bureaucratic discrimination against Gypsies. As in other countries, nomadic Gypsies are virtually unable to vote. 

Gypsies engage in a far wider spectrum of professions, trades and activities than in most European states. The vast majority, including sedentary Tsiganes, are self-employed. Press coverage is largely negative, reflecting public disquiet at periodic 'invasions' by nomadic Tsiganes.(117) 

A government policy of decentralization, adopted in 1982-3, has devolved on to local authorities wide powers of decision-making. This can have negative consequences for Gypsies.(118) Local municipalities with over 5,000 inhabitants, for example, are obliged by the Besson Act of 1990 to provide short- term and long-term sites for nomadic Gypsies. But, due to local opposition, it is increasingly difficult for French Roma to find sites on which to stay. All sites are stringently regulated, thus limiting social and economic activity (few allow scrap iron or gatherings around a fire). 

In March 1993 a National Consultative Committee on Travellers was set up, comprising ten elected officials, ten representatives of Gypsy organizations and ten ministerial representatives.(119) 

Six refugee Roma were deported in January 1995 from Carneres-sur-Seine, where Gypsies live without electricity or water.(120) In June and July 1995 seventy-three Romanians, chiefly Roma, were repatriated to Bucharest on chartered aircraft with Romanian police aboard. The French office for the protection of refugees and stateless persons has recently placed Romania on the list of 'safe' countries; very few refugees from Romania will therefore be granted asylum, and existing Romanian refugees in France will lose their status.(121) 

In May 1995 the Socialist mayor and nearly all the councillors of Saint-Priest (where Jean-Maric Le Pen's Front National had polled 27 per cent of the vote) resigned over the government's decision to accommodate hundreds of Gypsies from Romania and South Craiova.(122) 

Municipalities in south-west France have been accused by Gypsy associations of discrimination for refusing them access to private camp sites, electricity, education and medical care, amounting to a policy of 'systematic expulsion'.(123) 

Germany 
Total population: 81.5 million 
Roma population: 110,000-130,000 (MRG) 

History 
From the fifteenth century onwards German cities and states sought to expel Gypsies, using harsh legislation, banishment, torture and hanging, Gypsy hunts and shipment to Pennsylvania. While the first research on Gypsies, including pioneering scholarship on the Romani language, was undertaken by Germans, it often reflected deep- seated prejudice. Heinrich Grellmann, who wrote the first ethnographic treatise on Gypsies in 1783, described his 'evident repugnance, like a biologist dissecting some nauseating, crawling thing in the interests of science'.(124) Many German scholars expressed similar 'revulsion' (Widerwille) towards Gypsies. 

Post-Holocaust 'revisionism' 
The porajmos, the Roma holocaust, has remained widely unknown and ignored outside Germany. Within Germany, it was never officially admitted prior to a statement by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1982. Until recently, Gypsy victims of Nazism were neither commemorated on official remembrance days nor mentioned by politicians.(125) 

Moreover, the porajmos, in which between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma died, has been subject to 'revisionism', as has, to an even greater extent, the Jewish Holocaust. Some authors have claimed either that concrete data are not available or that most deaths of Sinti and Roma in concentration camps were caused by typhus due partly to the Gypsies' lack of hygiene. Numerous criminologists argued in the 1950s that Nazi measures against Gypsies were taken not on racial grounds but on the grounds of the Romanies' supposedly asocial, criminal tendencies.(126) Nazi racist vocabulary (Zigeunermischling) and stereotypes of Gypsies as primitive, corrupting and criminal were used repeatedly to justify Nazi actions against them. Until 1982 Hermann Arnold, a leading expert on Roma, used Dr Ritter's materials from the Berlin Institute to publish books justifying Ritter's pro- Nazi work and perpetuating anti-Gypsy attitudes;(127) as late as 1961 he published (in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society) an article entitled 'The Gypsy gene'. 

Similar anti-Gypsy prejudice is reflected in the matter of German reparations, particularly in Munich. Whereas Jewish victims of Nazism commonly won reparations, Romanies—with no state or lobby behind them—did not. German Sinti survivors (descendants of Roma who first entered Germany in the early fifteenth century), initially refused reinstatement of their German citizenship, eventually regained it. But the vast majority, like all Roma of other nationalities, received no reparations. Not until December 1963 did the supreme court reverse its view that Nazi deportations of Gypsies had occurred not for racial reasons but out of military and criminological considerations. Even then, forcibly sterilized Sinti and Roma receive no compensation unless they are demonstrably at least 25 per cent incapacitated for work.(128) 

Official prejudice 
Many of the Gypsies who remained in post-war Germany live in bleak, isolated settlements for the homeless and so-called Asozialen on the outskirts of cities. Most of their children are in schools for the mentally handicapped. As surviving Sinti, they are marginalized. Since the 1970s, and particularly since the mid-1980s, tens of thousands of Roma from Poland, the former Yugoslavia and Romania, fleeing racist persecution and often destitution, have entered Germany. (Between 50-60 per cent of the 103,787 Romanian asylum-seekers who entered Germany in 1992 were thought to be Romanies.)(129) Unlike the Sinti, they were highly conspicuous, wearing different clothing and speaking Romani or other languages. The latent German dislike of Gypsies, never fully confronted after the war, re- emerged even among liberals. In 1990 Herr Schmidt, a member of the Bremen state parliament, said in parliament with reference to the Gypsy holocaust: 'It's a pity that not more of them were murdered.' In the same month Herr Heck, the chief of Bremen city council and a member of the Green Party, compared the Nazi holocaust of Roma with the disappearance of the dinosaur: 'The Romany culture is not worth protecting.'(130) In 1992 the Nordrhein-Westfalen minister of social affairs accused Roma from Romania and Yugoslavia of 'poisoning our social climate'.(131) 

Pressure on Roma asylum-seekers 
Local authorities exerted pressure on Roma to leave by refusing to meet their elementary needs, placing children in homes, imposing strict police controls and making arrests. Following pressure from non- Roma human rights groups (including the Lutheran Church), less harsh policies were adopted in some major cities, where programmes to integrate the immigrants were developed. But among the half- million asylum-seekers in Germany the Roma have been singled out as prime targets of government stringency and public hostility. For example, some Roma seeking asylum were forced to live rough outside the Rostock asylum centre without sanitation. In August 1992 local protests quickly grew into organized violence and riots, in which neo-fascist skinheads played a major part. 

Repatriation 
A new policy of forcible return replaced that of integration. In December 1990 the government of Nordrhein-Westfalen withdrew a regulation allowing stateless Roma to settle there, instead offering Macedonia over DM 20 million to resettle Yugoslav Roma near Skopje.(132) On 5 March Germany was the only one of forty-three participants to vote against Resolution 62 of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, entitled 'Protection of Roma', the German delegation arguing that Roma did not constitute a minority in Germany, that they should not be the subject of positive discrimination and that Germany wished to retain its right to expel Romany refugees.(133) In September 1992 a formal agreement between Germany and Romania, becoming effective in November 1992, stated that all Romanians ineligible for asylum (mostly Roma) would be liable to forcible deportation to Romania. Since then Germany may have repatriated at least 40,000-50,000 Roma. Over DM 30 million were paid to the Romanian government.(134) Some monitoring has occurred of the fate of those forcibly returned. Thousands of Roma immigrants remain in Germany, and many still arrive. Even those -without identity papers are likely to be repatriated. 

By early 1993 no Roma had ever been granted refugee status in Germany. The Federal Office for Recognition of Foreign Refugees stated in January 1993 concerning Roma refugees from Romania: 'As a result of the alien character of the Roma, their stubborn retention of alien traditions, an intensive rejection of Roma as well as deep prejudices have emerged [in Romania]. This is normal. It is also understandable that such feelings are now expressed in a violent manner.' Since persecution of Roma in Romania is not officially regarded as political, no Roma would be eligible for political asylum.(135) 

Germany concluded a re-admission agreement with Poland in May 1993 which will affect many Roma. Moreover, a new refugee law came into effect in 1994, rendering it virtually impossible for any Rom to acquire a residence permit. Roma from Yugoslav territories, rendered stateless following the break- up of Yugoslavia, continued to be forcibly repatriated from Schleswig-Holstein and Baden- Württemberg.(136) 

Harassment 
Police actions against Roma have sometimes been harsh. In April 1990 1,200 officials and police raided an impoverished Romany settlement and claimed to have found money and goods worth DM 500,000. Rom leaders and supporters claimed that all belonged rightfully to the Roma.(137)

Few attempts have been made to ameliorate the lives of Roma in Germany. The Hamburg city council established a project in 1993 with the Roma and Sinti Union to help Romany child beggars. The project's caravan was destroyed by arson in March 1994. Following the arrest of a Rom woman in Hamburg, press rumours began circulating in July 1994 that a ring of Gypsy child thieves was operating in Germany.(138) 

Anti-Roma racism 
Roma in Germany are the object of intense racial hostility. On 28 August 1992 they were described in the Badische Zeitung as 'a pure disease', and in the Hamburger Morgenpost as a 'serious plague'. In 1994 Joachim Siegerist, who has dual Latvian/ German citizenship and leads the second strongest political party in Latvia, the People's Movement for Latvia, was convicted in Hamburg of incitement to racial hatred after distributing over 17,000 circulars in which he claimed that 'Gypsies produce children like rabbits' and were 'a seedy criminal pack who should be driven out of the country'.(139) A poll of 1,342 German university students in late 1994, conducted by the University of Wuppertal, showed that 60.4 per cent of East German and 37.7 per cent of West German students admitted disliking Gypsies, much higher than prejudice towards any other group.(140) In an arson attack on a prefabricated building housing refugees, mostly Roma, a Rom brother and sister were killed in Herford, Nordrhein-Westfalen in early 1995. Both Herford municipal council and the ministry of the interior denied that the victims were Roma.(141) 

Gypsies are subject to harassment from police and civic authorities. In December 1994 Frankfurt police strip-searched a Roma woman who had reported the theft of DM 700 from her purse.(142) In January 1995 the president of the Roma National Congress, Rudko Kawczynski, was fined for organizing at the former Neuengamme concentration camp a commemoration of Roma victims of the Holocaust. The peaceful event was held to contravene the 'law on green recreation areas' which prohibits protests in state parks.(143) Pro-Rom campaigners who protested against the deportation of forty-five Roma families from Erkelenz (Nordrhein-Westfalen) to Macedonia in May 1995 were threatened with prosecution on the grounds that their banner, 'Gassed yesterday— deported today', was an 'insult to the state'.(144) Following a dawn raid by 150 police in April 1995, thirty-nine Roma women, some as young as twelve, were taken into custody in Cologne and compelled to submit to fingerprinting and blood tests (and some to gynaecological searches) after an anonymous tip-off to police that one might be the mother of an abandoned baby.(145) 

Thus, fifty years after the Romany holocaust, Roma and Sinti living within Germany remain subject to intense public hostility, official harassment and murder. But there is a growing Gypsy civil rights movement, in which Roma and Sinti activists and performing artists are prominent. Today the federal government funds a staff of five people in the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and (since 1981) a staff of eight people in the Cultural and Documentary Centre for German Sinti and Roma, both in Heidelberg. Financial support is, however, granted on the basis of a categorization of Roma as a 'socially marginalized group' and not as a 'national minority', which Roman! Rose, chairman of the Central Council, describes as a 'stigmatizing practice'.(146) 

Hungary 
Total population: 10.3 million 
Roma population: 400,000 
(1990 census) (147)
550,000-600,000 (MRG) 

About 10 per cent of Roma in Hungary derive from Romania and speak archaic Romanian; 20 per cent are Romani-speaking and became sedentary under communism; about 70 per cent speak mainly Hungarian, their ancestors having arrived in the fifteenth century. 

History 
Established in Hungary by the late Middle Ages, nomadic Roma became prized metal smiths, gun smiths, soldiers and 'castle musicians', playing even before royalty. Following the Ottoman success at Mohács in 1526, their situation deteriorated. Immigrant Roma fleeing devastation due to the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) triggered anti-Gypsy legislation, which intensified after the recapture of Turkish territories in Hungary and anti-Habsburg riots in the late seventeenth century. Roma were outlawed from Habsburg lands; illegal re-entry led to flogging and finally execution. A 1710 ordinance decreed hard labour for anyone harbouring them.(148) All Roma found in Hungary were to be registered, and resistance was punishable by death. 

Empress Maria Theresa (who reigned from 1740- 80) attempted to exile or forcibly settle nomadic Roma throughout the empire (see section on the Czech Republic). Taxes, compulsory feudal service and military service for all male Roma were imposed. Providing Roma with food was punishable by law. Roma were forbidden to own horses and wagons and, from 1774 onwards, to marry other Roma. Rom children over five were to be taken permanently into non-Gypsy families to ensure a Catholic upbringing. A policy of Magyarization and compulsory integration of Roma was strongly pursued, though with mixed success. Roma evaded it whenever possible, officials and nobles complied half-heartedly, and Hungarian scholars protested. Joseph II intensified the oppressive anti-Gypsy legislation. Smithing and trading at fairs were forbidden; Rom children over four were to be forcibly removed from their families; forced settlement continued. In the nineteenth century there was little open persecution of Roma (although until 1906 anyone suspecting a Gypsy of a petty crime could nail him to a tree until police arrived). Rom music, championed by Franz Liszt, regained prominence, and scholars explored Romani dialects and culture.(149) 

Under communism 
Roma have historically been rejected by Hungarian society and remain so today, despite attempts under the communists to combat growing anti-Gypsy prejudice and raise educational standards and housing conditions (though Roma did not benefit from post-war land reform). Many local communities were destroyed in slum clearance programmes from 1964, and many men had to travel long distances for work, staying in hostels. In the late 1970s the government established councils of Gypsy affairs and an inter-ministenal co- ordinating committee, and in 1986 ratified the formation of a (politically active) Gypsy cultural association, supporting forty dance troupes and over 200 cultural groups. 

Post-1989 
From the late 1980s, when the government abandoned the policy of full employment, unemployment among Roma rose sharply. Formerly over 83 per cent were employed, mainly in traditional crafts, agriculture and unskilled jobs. Now a minimum of 30 per cent are unemployed, rising in some regions to 50, 80 or even 100 per cent.(150) Most employed Roma earn below-average wages in unskilled menial or heavy work and are the first workers to be sacked. Unemployment pay is for one year only; many Roma, particularly those who have worked in agriculture on a daily paid basis, are ineligible to claim it. An estimated 80 per cent of Roma live below the poverty line. 

Education 
Although their condition is better than that of Roma in Romania, Hungarian Roma live on the margins of society, dwelling in hovels, urban slums and rural shanty-towns. Their educational level is low: 50-80 per cent of Rom children do not complete elementary school, due partly to cultural factors (Romam as a first language, early marriages, lack of parental encouragement), and partly to poverty and the overriding need to contribute to the family's livelihood (under 2 per cent of Roma adolescents attend a secondary school).(