Roma. History of Persecution. Hate Crimes, Expulsions. Holocaust. Poverty: Survival Responses

Hate crimes
Holocaust

1. How to get at the scope of the persecutions against Roma. Narratives are fine, but timelines may give a better start. Overall fodder background discussion of those in any culture who are designated as fodder, expendable: The Common Good, Who Speaks for It.

According to this site, //www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/europe/gypsy.html:

• France - expelled Roma from Paris 1539

• Spain - punitive laws 1492, after the Roma had lived free under Muslim rule

• England - forced out Roma in 1563, under threat of death (travel to Ireland, Wales, Scotland, then back?)

• Hungary, Romania - enslaved many in 14th Century to work the large estates

• Also says 500,000 killed in WWII Nazi camps (figures vary from 300,000 to a million - no birth or death records, figures not consistent in including the non-camp slaughter)

2. Timeline in history. See ://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/timeline.htm

3. The why of persecution and hate crimes - a start.

See a start at ://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm, a site with information to help healthcare providers address needs of eastern European Roma -a cultural history, taboos, health issues and practices. That article gives some clues, from very specific legends, myths.

• Genesis 9:25 quoted there as applying to the Gypsies - (how could that be? Genesis and Roma??) "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants He shall be to his brethren." The West can always find something in its scripture to justify anything. Is that so? Not in the Baylor article, but an observation.
  

• There is a legend in Balkans that Roma made the nails for the Crucifixion and/or stole the fourth nail, that would have hastened the process if it had been pounded in; so the Crucifixion was made more painful by the theft.
  

Rankism. See Common Dreams at ://www.commondreams.org/views05/0510-33.htm/ Rankism supplanting racism. The somebodies vs. the nobodies.

Rankism. Feeds a simple need for an undercaste. Why do cultures need an undercaste. Is it economic, the fear that, if any abundance is allowed them, above survival, it reduces what is available to others; or is it psychological, that if this person is down, at least I am up.

Poverty creates a permanent underclass that then defends itself as best it can, by whatever measures needed. See one analysis, shaky but in process, of groups and their interacting at Studying War. There is pressure to suppress, from governments, to leaders, to people acting to protect their lifestyles and positions on some ladder hierarchy; other behaviors develop in response. Gypsies have often been kept at bottom, at least since the 16th Century, some better conditions before then. Force theft to get the basics, then punish the theft, while withholding the acceptance and tolerance that would enable a a group to do otherwise? Is that it?

4. How did Jews and Gypsies survive at all, given the centuries of hate.

Look at this old text, from 1898, "The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam," by Sir Richard F. Burton (it says he translated the 1001 Nights, etc,) that details understandings he researched at the time, for these particular groups. It is at ://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/The%20Jew,%20the%20Gypsy%20and%20El%20Islam%20JR.pdf

Scroll down to page 160 ff, give or take. Note the cultural prejudices and derogatory attitude of this colonial era, and then the similarities between target groups, the Jews and the Gypsies.

Both been outcast, had their own customs, and in past times, an overall appearance that was overall different from the "aryan" and other European physical groups, each had its own language, own names.

Survival at all - how could they survive. But the site (again, this is 1898) notes that the wealth that the Jewish groups accumulated in developing financial and commercial skills, and settling down; brought on a corresponding backlash of persecutions and confiscation.

Look then at the poverty of the Gypsy. It actually gave some protection. They survived by language ties and consanguinity, not accumulating wealth and settling down. Full circle. Both were hated groups, opposite cultural responses toward their common enemy, one to become well-to-do, the other in poverty and transience, and continuing persecutions with each surviving in its way.

5. History of events.

At the "The Jew, the Gypsy and el Islam" site, also read of the migrations, reactions, Papal bulls against them, laws, etc. Go to page 200 or so. People have really worked at putting the story together, some things were right, some off base, but worth reading old sources.

Read about Gypsies in Spain, other parts of Europe, Africa, and contrast the state of Islam and Jewish traditions in the same volume.

Read "The Pariah Syndrome, A History of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution" by Ian Hancock, at http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/pariah-contents.htm. Find a detailed table of contents on background, practices in different locales.