Persecution of the Roma

If any one single aspect of their history has been dominant, it must, unfortunately, be that of their persecution, forced assimilation, enslavement, and yes, even genocide carried out against them by the Nazi's. The recorded, discernable history of "anti-gypsyism" goes back to their first appearance in Europe in the 1400's where they were at times welcomed, but far more often confused with muslim invaders from the east in such times. Laws were enacted against them everywhere they went. The history of the response of the countries in which they have lived has been uniformly one of rejection, mistrust, fear, banishment, enslavement, torture, and murder. Current estimates are that roughly 600,000 Roma were exterminated by the Nazi's, roughly "1/4 to 1/3 of their numbers in all of Europe and as much as 70% of those in areas where Nazi control had been established the longest" (1)

Details of their past and present persecution and torture are too painful to reproduce here. The reader is referred to the following 2 references which detail such. The resurgence of anti-gypsyism in the eastern European countries of the former communist block is alarming, as is their situation in the remainder of the world.

Crowe, David. and John Kolsti, eds. The Gypsies of Eastern Europe. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991. Introduction and "The East European Roots of Romani Nationalism." by Ian Hancock are particularly good, as are the remainder of the chapters, detailing the experience of the Roma in Germany and the Nazi's genocide as well as their experience in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Roumania, Croatia, Serbia, and Albania.
Hancock, Ian. The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution Ann Arbor: Karoma Press, 1987. Probably the single best source regarding persecution and slavery of the Roma.

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