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INTRODUCTION |
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page 2 |
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In 1864, just as Sherman �s march was laying waste of the Southern United States , a stroke of the pen in Romanian parliament declared complete legal freedom of all Gypsy slaves � the buying and selling of human beings was banned for good. The Gypsies were free � and the migrations resumed. Romanian speaking Gypsies, who became known abroad as �Karavlasi� (Black Vlachs) began crossing borders and turning up in Germany , Italy , Spain and the Americas making the Romanian �Vlach� dialect the most widespread. These former slaves were unlike Europe �s further integrated Gypsies; they had strange customs and a dialect that even the other Gypsies didn�t understand. The waves of these refugees into Europe kicked up the old fears and there evolved a new era of Gypsy persecutions. It was just about this time when delightful authors like Victor Hugo and Georges Bizet were entertaining the world with characterizations of Gypsy thieves, kidnappers of white babies and lascivious creatures. Though purely fictional they expressed the popular attitudes of the day. Meanwhile more dangerous anti-Gypsy writings were coming out of academia, from authors like criminologist Cesare Lombroso who�s popular book �The Criminal Man� contained a lengthy chapter on the genetically criminal character of the Gypsy and Richard Liebich, who wrote on the Roma of Holland. Liebich�s use of the phrase �lives unworthy of life� would later turn up in Hitler�s extermination law �Lebensunwertesleben� (lives not deserving of life) in which he would outline the sterilization of Gypsies along with the Jews, Germans of black color, homosexuals and the disabled. |
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The hellish Holocaust would conclude with some one million to one and a half million Gypsies, gassed, burned, executed or starved to death in what the Roma people refer to as �poraiimos� (the devouring).
From the ashes of fascism rose the communist, and the attempted genocide carried out by the Nazi�s was resumed in a bloodless attempt to exterminate the race through forced assimilation. The communist dogma preached of a homogeneous society in which minorities did not exist; references to the Roma or their culture was prohibited. This policy would prove to have grave effects on the Gypsy identity.
On the other hand, life under communism had its benefits. Compulsory education forced Roma into the educational system and many began moving further ahead into professional and technical school. Sadly many of those that rose out of their caste would drop the Gypsy identity and merge into the minority � taking on a non-Gypsy wife, the blonder � the better. Ethnic self-hatred amongst Gypsies was all the rage. Meanwhile, speeded up industrialization under the communist created a surplus of jobs and the Gypsies state of living rapidly improved. But the rise was too short lived and never took firm enough hold to prevent a flush back into the pariah status with the collapse of the Communist social system. |
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The Roma of today have opened up a new page � a new beginning; this is a period some term as the Roma Renaissance. They are spreading their wings through art festivals, exhibits, language programs, theater, books and newspapers. Political unification of the Roma people is taking a foothold not only within individual nations, but across borders.
Beneath the surface of this new awakening cluster the many divided groups. Although the politicized city Gypsies that are running the show make light of these divisionary tribes, in the countryside, where resides the vast majority, loyalty remains firstly with the satra (the band). A Gypsy is firstly united within his Kalderari, Ursari, or Gabori community; it shows in the everyday life on the streets, in how they deal with one another, and from the sharp response I was once given by a young man I asked if he was a Gypsy: �I am Ursar. My father and grandfather were Ursari, my children are Ursari, and so will be their children.�
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