The Tale of the Bad Gypsy and the Good Bear

In the late medieval period, gossip spread that it was Gypsy blacksmiths who forged the nails used during Christ’s crucifixion, or that the Gypsies were the offspring of witches fornicating with the devil. Such sentiments continued and the fates of the Jewish and Romani populations were much alike.

Przemysław Witkowski: When did the Romani come to Europe?

Joanna Talewicz: They first arrived, among other places, in Greece and Bulgaria in the 14th century. They were travelling blacksmiths, musicians, fortune tellers, and merchants. This first stage of their stay in Europe was very peaceful and productive – in all likelihood, the most peaceful period in all of Romani history. In those days, the world was permeated by religion. Values such as asceticism, renunciation of earthly goods, and commitment to the life of penance were held in high esteem. The Romani were quick to understand that and adapt; soon they were using religion as a way of blending into their surroundings. They introduced themselves as an itinerant people, continually travelling because they have surrendered their life to God in an act of penance for their fathers’ sins. On the one hand, they provoked fear and curiosity – they were perceived as a mysterious community of unknown origins, differing from others in language and appearance, and itinerant to boot. On the other hand, as people who devoted their lives to God they commanded respect. Local communities not only accepted but also helped them, supplying them with food and land where they could settle. This gave the Romani an opportunity to thrive. They were not attacked or chased away upon their arrival in new places.

P.W.: So why did they pursue the itinerant lifestyle?

J.T.: In fact, we do not know that for certain. It is possible that they brought this lifestyle with them from India, where there are many itinerant communities, even today. Or maybe they only developed this strategy upon their arrival in Europe? Romani blacksmiths, musicians, fortune tellers, and jugglers added to the local pool of services. Moving from one place to another, they managed to cater to local needs and reduce expenses for villages. The Romani could reach their clients better than anybody else and their services were very popular. These travelling groups in Poland or, more broadly, in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc were financially independent. Their lifestyle allowed them to make enough money to survive through the winter on their earnings alone. When the demand for their services slowed in one place, they would relocate to another. This continued even after World War II.

P.W.: But wasn’t their situation a bit similar to that of the Jewish population? The Jews were also banned from buying land at some point, which forced them to seek employment in services and trade.

J.T.: Initially, their situations were different, but later things changed. The first historical source indicating Romani presence in Poland suggests that their financial circumstances were the same as everybody else’s. It is a document from 1401, concerning the purchase of real estate by a Romani in Kraków. At the time, becoming a Kraków citizen required being affluent enough to be able to afford a house, but a permit from the city authorities and good social standing were also mandatory. Sadly, this situation did not last long. It was not the Romani who changed, however: the circumstances did. In the 16th century the first anti-Romani bills were passed, whose aim was to force the assimilation of the Romani population. Different countries employed various strategies to uproot them. It was thought best that they should not speak their own language or identify as Roma or Gypsies; instead, they were to be renamed; in Spain, for instance, they were now referred to as New Castilians. The authorities wanted to banish the Romani from their land, which necessitated frequent relocations. Without the right to settle, there is no right to work, buy land, become part of the local community. This tendency continued well into the 20th century. Of course, much depended on the country – in Austro-Hungary, following the orders of Empress Maria Theresa and later her son Joseph II, Romani children were taken away from their parents and placed in care facilities. In Spain, the punishment for speaking Romani was torture. In Wallachia and Transylvania, on the Romanian–Hungarian border, in the 14th–19th centuries they were treated as slaves.

P.W.: And what was their situation in Poland in the same period?

J.T.: The first examples of anti-Romani legislation in Europe appeared together with the emergence of capitalist economy, in which Poland occupied a marginal position. Expelled from Germany, the Romani – like Jews before them – relocated to Poland. The Polish Romani community today is of Polish and German (Sinti) origin, which is evidenced by numerous German influences in their dialect. It is true that in the second half of the 17th century some anti-Romani bills were passed in Poland, but they were not universally executed. Why? Because the local communities needed the Romani. Polish magnates relied on their services as soldiers, artisans, musicians, and entertainers. Prince Karol Stanisław Radziwiłł (generally known by his sobriquet “Panie Kochanku” [My dear sir]) had a special carriage pulled by bears with a Romani driver, which he frequently used to tour his estate.

P.W.: Does that mean that Poland was relatively tolerant towards the Romani?

J.T.: The Romani looked for a better, safer place to live. Poland was certainly one of such places, but this was only due to its economic and social backwardness. With the dawn of modernity, the expulsion of Romani communities from nation states began. They fled from Germany, for instance, to escape atrocious repression. They were hunted like animals, which is evidenced by chronicle entries: “A good hunt today: two deer, a fox, a few roe deer and two little Gypsies.” Such actions were sanctioned by law. The Romani were equalled with animals in order to drive them away from the country. Any Romani gatherings and Romani language were banned. Such policies always trigger immediate retaliation. If someone is outlawed merely on the grounds of their ethnicity, they stop caring if they commit offences or not, since they are punished anyway. If the mere fact of existence is viewed as a crime, with time the repressed group will resort to criminal actions. Anti-Romani sentiments motivated by religion are yet another story. There were periods in history when the Romani were denied baptism and other sacraments. They were not viewed as part of the church due to their alleged “practice of magic”. Like medieval witches, they were arrested and tortured. Here the economic and social contexts overlapped. The impossibility of hewing to some norms promotes rejection. In the late medieval period, gossip spread that it was Gypsy blacksmiths who forged the nails used during Christ’s crucifixion, or that the Gypsies were the offspring of witches fornicating with the devil. Such sentiments continued and the fates of the Jewish and Romani populations were much alike. Economic, social, and religious aspects underlined both antisemitic and anti-Romani sentiments. Still active racism against the Romani and Jews only emerged in the 19th century, and in the 20th century these racist attitudes were fully acted upon.

P.W.: In the Middle Ages, the Romani performed a specific role in economy. What happened next?

J.T.: The emerging capitalism gradually marginalised them. Its development gave rise to new social phenomena and new values. The Romani did not change, but the surrounding reality did. Itinerant lifestyle was now regarded as vagrancy and refusal to work. They were no longer accepted. As a group adjusted to a certain economic model, they kept relocating to the last enclaves of the former system. Wherever the economy changed, they were criminalised. Moreover, the Romani artisans could not compete with manufactures, and later factories, due to higher production costs. Their labour became unprofitable. The same mechanism occurred in Poland with communist state-run farms after the political transformation of 1989 – for this reason, the Polish Romani communities are frequently compared to the former state-run farm communities in disarray, since both groups are equally socially marginalised. The Romani were famous for producing excellent frying pans, but their production was costly and time-consuming. As a result, they could not compete with mass production; after all, a new pan made in China can be bought in any supermarket for as little as 40 zlotys.

P.W.: What are the challenges encountered by the transforming Romani communities in Poland?

J.T.: Following the collapse of the inefficient Polish state in 1795, anti-Romani policies were in operation in Polish territories. The situation of the Romani communities would differ depending on the post-partition. The worst situation was in the lands incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia. The Romani descended into poverty and resorted to crime. They had to go into hiding – any attempt to emerge from their woodland hideouts could result in imprisonment, torture and even death.

P.W.: Why did the invaders impose such strict anti-Romani policies?

J.T.: It was a continuation of prejudice rooted in stereotypes. The Romani culture was viewed as crime-inducing, corrupting children who would not be raised as reliable citizens. For this reason it had to be transformed. Maria Theresa and Joseph II Hapsburg are well known for their modernisation policies, but modernisation could only be implemented after crushing the resistance of those who opposed. The same argument was raised by the Nazis. Drawing on 19th-century theories of race, they promised the creation of a great, powerful Reich, followed by great, powerful Europe – if only the rebels were removed. The same policy had been pursued during the rule of Empress Maria Theresa. Children were taken away from their parents and placed in peasant families for upbringing sponsored by the state, or sent to care facilities. Such a way of governing people and workforce was typical of the 19th-century capitalism. These care facilities, whose official aim was to assist in children’s moral development, were also institutions of forced labour. Their purpose was to create new social tissue through complete assimilation of their wards. The same policies were implemented against Indigenous Australians, and by the Nazis. Children from occupied territories who displayed “Aryan characteristics” were transferred into the Reich and placed in state-run care facilities. Even today, there are labour programmes for prison inmates, and penalisation of minor offences ensures a steady supply of workforce to minimum security prisons. For their work, the inmates receive much lower rates of pay than on the free market. The most horrifying of all, however, is the fact that the Romani presence is again viewed as a problem. Some Hungarian politicians declared that the “Romani question” in contemporary Europe needs to be resolved and special facilities should be created for Romani children to raise them as “normal citizens” who will not replicate pathological, crime-inducing behaviours of their parents.

P.W.: Let us return to the war period. What happened to the Romani during the conflict?

J.T.: Even though the Sinti were a well-assimilated, German-speaking group, pursuing a settled lifestyle, enlisting in the German army, and quite often entering into mixed marriages, no one was safe from the Nuremberg Laws. Commander Heinrich Himmler was obsessed with them. The dominant tendency was to search for “Aryan features” in people and eliminate those who posed a threat to “racial purity”. The Romani were of “Aryan” (Indo-European Indian) origin. The SS Race and Settlement Main Office and the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of the University of Tübingen were ordered to conduct the racial classification of the “Gypsies” in order to identify those who display typical Romani characteristics. These were found among the Sinti and the Laleri – German and Czech Romani. The plan was to place them in reservations and subject them to genetic research in order to establish purely Aryan traits. The programme was to include about ten percent of the entire Romani population, saving them from the Holocaust. The division into socialised and anti-social was of no consequence; the social integration factor was completely dismissed. It was all about race. The Romani were arrested by local Gestapo units. On 16 December 1942 Himmler gave order to deport the Roma to a death camp. In January, the Zigeunerlager in Auschwitz-Birkenau was selected. This was the most important document concerning Romani extermination. They were killed not only in death camps, but also throughout the entire territory of occupied Europe. The so-called Einsatzkommandos tracked them down and executed on the spot. The first country to announce “success” in the extermination of the Jewish and Romani population in 1941 was Croatia. The Croatian Romani were all murdered in the Jasenovac concentration camp. Bohemia and Moravia organised camps in Lety and Hodonín; in Romania, the Roma were relocated to Transnistria. About 5,000–6,000 Austrian Sinti were sent to Zigeunerlager in the Łódź Ghetto, but the camp’s existence was of short duration. After the outbreak of a typhoid fever epidemic, all prisoners were killed in army trucks adapted into gas chambers at Kulmhof am Nehr. The Romani were also placed in the Warsaw Ghetto and in all major concentration camps across occupied Poland. Until recently, the former camp in Lety for pregnant Romani women and mothers with small children has been used as a large pig farm. In such places people were killed almost instantaneously, in a mechanised manner, in gas chambers. In Croatia, however, car fumes and tortures were applied; the victims were axed with machetes or electrocuted. The main symbol of the Romani Holocaust remains the Zigeunerlager in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where all European Romani were deported since late 1942. Some were also sent to the camps at Majdanek, Treblinka, and Sobibór, usually together with transported Jews, and both groups were exterminated together. In addition, across the occupied territories of Poland and the Soviet Union, the Nazis organised an extermination programme outside the camp system. The Romani and Jews were killed on the spot upon capture. Over 200 mass graves have been identified in Poland to date. Among the witnesses of killings in Volhynia were the famous poet Bronisława Wajs (Papusza) and Alfreda Markowska, both Polish-Romani. The latter, despite grave danger, rescued Romani and Jewish orphans from genocide. For her bravery, she was awarded an order by President Lech Kaczyński. Known as the Romani Irena Sendler, she saved the lives of approximately fifty children. It is a pity that her life story remains virtually unknown…

P.W.: How many people were killed?

J.T.: It is believed that about 500,000 Romani lost their lives during the war, but it is only an estimate. Some historians speak of a million or two million victims, others of 200,000. It is believed that about 50­–80 percent of the entire pre-war Romani population were killed; but it is difficult to estimate its precise size. Some led itinerant lifestyle and either avoided censuses altogether, or chose not to report their Roma ethnicity out of fear. It is a typical behaviour for persecuted minorities. Before the war, nobody attempted any systematic study of the Romani population; the Nazis, however, approached the task very thoroughly. Drawing on 19th-century theories of race, they based their research mainly on anthropometry – measuring the body. In addition, they collected information concerning the Romani settlements, migration routes, marriages, families, and clans. They knew everything about these topics. As a result, the Nazi genocide of the Romani population destroyed the family-clan structure as well as Romani ways of travelling and making income, shattering their trust in any form of authority. It was the climax of many centuries of prejudice and oppression.

P.W.: How did the situation of the Romani change after the war?

J.T.: They were difficult to control, especially the itinerant groups. As a result, the authorities forced them to settle. The goal was to transform nomads into labourers. Many special programmes were initiated to control the Romani and make them reliant on state support. Opinions were voiced and disseminated that the Romani posed a threat to civil harmony. Every citizen was expected to have employment and a fixed address. For the first time in history, the issue of Romani literacy was raised and Romani children were sent to school. Nevertheless, the schooling programme was part of propaganda and its results were expected to look promising on paper rather than in reality. In fact, the authorities did not care if the Romani were truly able to read and write. The greatest beneficiaries of the programme were the first groups to become involved, namely the settled Romani, who did not travel from one place to another and created closer bonds with non-Romani communities. In that period, an intense migration of the Romani was observed, with people relocating from the mountain areas to urban centres with large state-run industrial facilities, such as Kraków. For this reason, there is still a large Romani community living in this city, the so called Bergitka Roma. It was the Romani who built Nowa Huta. Their children went to school. It was different, however, for the itinerant Romani, who were not interested in the settled way of life. For them, state institutions were a necessary evil – at best. They perceived non-Romani institutions as oppressive. Community members who chose to cooperate were treated with contempt. At any rate, it was the first moment In history when the Romani were schooled. This also applied to my own family, who used to travel across the Małopolska region, but chose to settle in Oświęcim, where they subsequently lived until the 1980s.

P.W.: Was there a pogrom in Oświęcim?

J.T.: During any crisis, ethnic tensions tend to surface. From the period of the martial law until the end of political transformation, fights, assaults, and pogroms against the Romani would occur. Then, after the privatisation, they started losing their jobs. It was not because any ethnic prejudice, but rather due to the fact that they mostly worked as unskilled labourers. As a result, they were the first to be made redundant. They turned out to be the chief victims of the post-communist transformation in Poland. They were the least rooted in the system and social network; they did not participate in post-work rituals (beer nights, social gatherings) with other Polish workers. It was the time of mounting political tension, which also gave rise to intercultural conflicts. The economic situation was difficult, as major changes were underway. In such circumstances as these, people tend to choose scapegoats ­and longstanding prejudices usually surface. Today, we tend to blame all on the Muslims; before, we accused the Jews and Romani. In 1981, the first conflicts began, which today are usually referred to as the Romani pogroms. The first incident took place on 9­–10 September 1981 in Konin, a town with the Romani population of 70; and the second on 21–22 October 1981 in Oświęcim, with 137 Romani residents. The course of events was typical of pogroms. An impulse occurred, which catalysed aggression. A Romani and a non-Romani quarrelled about their place in a queue. A fight broke out, which escalated rapidly. Speculations concerning the Romani financial situation began; gossip about expensive stolen cars circulated. According to another piece of gossip, the Romani population from neighbouring towns ­(Kęty, Chrzanów, and Andrychów) were to be relocated to Oświęcim. People took to the streets to voice their protest against this plan – even though in fact no such plan had ever been made. My family’s neighbours, people with whom we had reasonably friendly relations, initiated a local committee for the expulsion of the Romani from the city and stroke some kind of deal with regional authorities. The protesters destroyed Romani possessions, burnt Romani cars, and threw them into the river. Then regular riots started; the protesters would throw stones and Molotov cocktails into people’s windows; everything was burning. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the entire Romani community hid in their homes, and often in their cellars. Their possessions were destroyed. It turned out that they were expected to leave not only the town, but also the country, without the possibility of returning. When the martial law was announced in Poland, they were on the ferry to Malmö, Sweden. Some of these emigrants chose to return after 1989, others stayed, but all of them suffered immense trauma. They were expelled from the country in which they were born. It still remains unknown on what grounds the agreement was struck between the communist government and Sweden. It is a fact, however, that today there are only a dozen people of Romani descent living in Oświęcim.

P.W.: Would you say that this action was similar to anti-Jewish policies of 1968?

J.T.: To a certain extent, yes. Today some people say: “You know, to be able to get behind the Iron Curtain in 1981 and move to Sweden… Many would dream of it.” Nobody seems to notice, however, what it really meant for these people: being uprooted, breaking up families, banishment. The same was true about forced settlement. My father’s family led the itinerant lifestyle well into the 1970s, traveling through the forests and hiding from the authorities. Many Romanis would take the risk and break the law to protect their lifestyle. Of course, settlement also had financial consequences ­– not being able to travel meant being unable to sell their services, and financial losses forced many to become reliant on state support. For this reason, the itinerant were ready to go to great lengths to protect themselves. As a young girl, I did not understand why they should view settling down as such tragedy. I would ask my aunt: “But why do you keep talking about tragedy? You came out of the forest and into flats; they gave you heating, bathrooms, electricity, and employment.” My aunt gave me a very wise answer: just imagine that suddenly an intruder enters your home and tells you: “Pack your things; you have fifteen minutes. You will move to the forest because I believe it will be better for you.” And suddenly you find yourself in an unfamiliar environment. One completely unknown to you, even if, supposedly, it is meant to be an improvement. It is an invasion of people’s lives, making decisions for others, casting people into the unknown against their will. The forest was the only environment they knew, just as we only know heated flats.

P.W.: Considering that your family was so committed to the traditional Romani way of life, and that you are just one generation removed from itinerant lifestyle, how did you become an academic?

J.T.: After the events in Oświęcim, I stayed with my mother and grandmother. I went to school – in this local community, with the memory of the pogrom still alive. I was different from my classmates. I was very lucky – at that time, Romani children were often sent to special needs schools, which sometimes formed entire “Gypsy” groups. It was easier to remove these children from standard schools because they did not speak Polish well enough, had problems with reading and writing, and frequently skipped classes. This was considered as sufficient reason to transfer a child to a special needs school. But my parents felt that I needed to study, that education was the only tool that could help me.

P.W.: And what is the perception of the Romani minority in Poland today?

J.T.: It is viewed as backward, problematic, and plagued by social pathology. These popular stereotypes about the Romani still run deep and tend to resurface. It did not begin with the surge of migration of the Romani from Romania and Bulgaria to other European countries after 2007 (when these two countries joined the European Union). A prejudice was rekindled, which has long existed in European culture. It is very deeply ingrained and thus difficult to change or have its impact curbed; especially with pop culture, media, and literature regularly adding fuel to it. According to the stereotype, the Romani are always on the move, beg for money, and cause trouble. Like in the story from a junior school textbook in the 1930s: “A Tale of the Bad Gypsy and the Good Bear”. This stereotype of the Romani is continually reinforced in literature and film. With the media story about finding a blond girl in a Roma settlement in Greece, the prejudice resurfaced again. People immediately insisted that she must have been kidnapped from a white family – after all, “everyone knows” that “the Romani steal children”. This is a typical example of moral panic – stories involving children. The same happened before the pogrom in Kielce in 1946, where people convinced that “the Jews kidnapped a boy to kill him and make matzah with his blood”. The girl in Greece turned out to be Bulgarian-Romani; her parents entrusted her to a wealthier family for upbringing. I also remember the public controversy when the Polish media discovered a group of Romanian-Romani living in allotment in Wrocław. An ordinary person cannot easily distinguish between Polish- and Romanian-Romani. The new migrants triggered the stereotype people had in their heads. Nobody saw the link between their arrival and the accession of new member states to the European Union. Nobody paused to inquiry into the living conditions of the Romani in Romania making them volunteer to settle in allotment here. Well, these conditions are in fact much worse. Still, the common perception is that these people are Gypsies – a threat to the safety of law-abiding citizens. And these are just people who need our help.

Translated from the Polish by Aleksandra Kamińska