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Special Report
Gypsy Summer
Europe’s Roma flood into the capital cities.
BORDEAUX — Anyone visiting Italy, France, Germany or Holland this summer is likely to be struck by increasing signs of abject poverty on the streets. Begging has expanded noticeably, often by elderly men and women or mothers carrying small babies. A woman holding her three-month-old daughter asked me for loose change outside a post office the other day on Bordeaux’s most fashionable street.
At the Sunday outdoor market on Bordeaux’s revitalized riverside, an accordionist plays mournful Slavic tunes as shoppers drop coins in a cup. I chatted with him the other day in a mix of French and Russian, both of which he spoke badly. He was surprisingly cheerful and seemed well fed. Now we call each other “kamarad.”
With some exceptions, these dispossessed people are a long way from home. Eastern Europe’s poor, mostly Roma, or gypsies, are coming west in large numbers looking for a better life or at least more charity.
Since the admission of Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union two years ago they rank as the largest ethnic minority in the Union, now numbering 12 million, more numerous than the population of Belgium or Greece.
After contributing modestly to the upkeep of the Roma for some months, I felt compelled to gain entry to this off-limits culture if only to test the veracity of scare stories circulating about them. Child prostitution and rampant thievery are common complaints from the local population. Their communal way of life, their wanderlust, their rejection of contraception and their poor language skills all contribute to the barriers that exclude them.
One well-traveled friend goes further, warning me that Roma are a “permanent criminal underclass that has taken its business on the road.” The truth turns out to be more complicated.
To gain entry into their isolated quarters, I joined up with Dr. Christophe Adam of Médecins du Monde, a young physician who makes a pro bono visit to the gypsy squatters once or twice a week. On a recent visit, he was greeted as an old friend and I was just as warmly received once they came to trust me. They live in fear of racist attacks and official expulsion orders.
The doctor and I were encircled by a dozen or so men and women chattering excitedly in four languages. When they learned I was an American, one old man gave a thumbs-up sign and shouted, “Yes! Amerika!” A younger man, smiling broadly, introduced himself as “Bobby — like ‘Dallas.’”
These proud and handsome people are excluded from society where they came from — Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — and more so in Western Europe. Except for members of a few charitable organizations, most West Europeans treat them as lepers.
If they identify a West Europe city that treats them tolerably well, as Bordeaux does, they write to fellow-villagers back home and tell them it is safe to come over. Thus extended families are often reunited although in deplorable conditions.
After a round of introductions at the squat, Dr. Adam and I were ushered into a large room, once a factory floor that now serves as home for about 15 people. Seven double beds were neatly arranged around the room as in a military barracks. Colorful fabrics were hung to cover the cement walls. The senior woman in the group strode toward me and introduced herself in Russian as Gladka.
I half expected her to offer me tea in a glass, Russian style, but that was beyond her. The room has no running water or toilet facilities. Electricity is pirated from a nearby utility pole.
I had a long talk in halting French with Léonard, a 19-year-old Bulgarian who said he makes enough money begging and washing windshields at street corners to buy his food, so he does not have to steal to survive. “I just want a normal life for my wife, and I don’t want my daughter to become a beggar. I want to work,” he said. Another man, camping in quarters next to the Bordeaux city dump, pulled at my sleeve and begged me to help him find odd jobs.
A high-level conference in Brussels last September suggested ways to bring some order to the treatment of Roma, chiefly by recommending that Roma children be accepted in the local school system.
But the law is uncompromising. The French occasionally round up the Roma and expel them for infraction of immigration laws. The Italian police sweep through the camps to count heads and collect DNA samples to match up family members.
Some manage to escape the spiral of exclusion and degradation. One such celebrated case is Cecilia Attias, the ex-wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Cecilia is the daughter of Aron Ciganer (a corruption of “tsigane,” or gypsy) who was half-Jewish and half-gypsy. Two European Parliamentarians are of Roma origin. But such success stories are rare.
Their plight is neatly summed up by Dr. Adam: “The Roma problem is symbolic of our inability to live with people whose culture and habits are outside our norms.”
Letter to the Editor View all comments (38) | Leave a comment
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Jani| 7.28.09 @ 6:25AM
Whatever... I suppose Islam is the religion of peace, too.
El Rey| 7.28.09 @ 7:07AM
Gypsies are theives. Work is alien to them while begging is like breathing.
Alice Moore| 7.28.09 @ 7:33AM
This is a romanticized account; no pun intended. I know someone who toured Rome at the height of the gypsy season. The "beggars" are usually pickpockets or worse.
From accounts that I've read the Roma have no interest in assimilation, or education as a group. The writer has written a rose colored account of poverty on the streets. If we are to believe this person, the only thing French citizens have to worry about is pirated electricity.
Kitty| 7.28.09 @ 9:52AM
Thank you for writing this article.
We became familiar with the Roma through their music and they come from many different countries, each with their own distinctive music.
Jan Yoors wrote "The Gypsies," a fascinating book about his ten years spent with a wandering band of Gypsies.
...
james wilson| 7.28.09 @ 11:18AM
If you were not playing the fool for them you might understand that there is a reason the Roma do not ever assimilate anywhere, and that the reason is not that all those many countries reject them, including the USA. The reason is that the Roma reject other cultures. That is how they stated Roma all these centuries.
Peter Maas' 'King of the Gyspsies' is forty years old, but no more dated than the Gypsies, who are timeless. There is no good reason to be ignorant of something that you take the trouble to write upon. They saw you coming. But that is what they do.
Tim| 7.28.09 @ 11:39AM
I met the Roma in Bosnia in the 1990's. They managed to survive in Sarajevo under brutal conditions. One little boy jumped onto my car and clung to the mirror until he got a dollar. I'd rather give him a buck than see him injured or killed.
Jesus said that the poor will always be with us. Roma kids wading into traffic in a blown up city will always be with me. May God bless and protect them. I realize that many Roma adults are scoundrels, so too are many of us.
Colossians 3:12-13 (New International Version)
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Richard Szathmary| 7.28.09 @ 2:21PM
I woukd be more sympathetic to the plight worldwide of the Gypsies if I'd ever been convinced that they sincerely wish to assimilate, at least partly. But no, they seem quite content to remain an underclass devoted to petty criminality and, especially, to illiteracy and welfare scams. In Budapest, when the tour buses pull into the parking lots by the national museums and the entrance to the zoo, they literally swarm out of their own vehicles intent on gulling tourists. It's an impressive demonstration in its own way, but it never bodes any good: overpriced postcards, good luck charms, even "saints' relics." And you really do have to hold on to your wallet as they press around you. This is hardly the way to win over others to your "cause."
In my native NJ, they've "graduated" to aluminum siding, auto repair and driveway resealing. (My own mother once fell victim to a gypsy crew of auto body workers - our Plymouth, which was to have been repaired amazingly cheaply, had a right front quarter panel composed of brick-colored primer for three years until we sold it, since they never returned to sand down and repaint it.) But they never ever come back the next day to finish the job. And they also never seem to have problems renting roadside cottages from which to provide "life advice" and related, uh, counseling services. None, too, ever take credit cards.
I realize this is bred into them as children, this necessity to gull the straights. Really, however, it has to stop somewhere. Until it does, until there truly are gypsy "leaders' (the term is a somewhat leaky one, we all should acknowledge) who sincerely attempt to turn their people to the path of education and law-abiding behavior, it's hard to conjure up even a passing interest in helping them.
And then, of course, there are the "other" sort of American gypsies, far less swarthy sorts who winter over in a few Eastern seaboard states (SC seems a particular favorite for their settlements) and spread out as the weather warms with their own scams. These folks can usually read and write after a fashion, but their interest too seems to mainly be in perpetrating petty crimes. And they are just as dedicated as their darker-skinned European and American counterparts in avoiding census forms, voter registrations and drivers' licenses. Rumor persists among cops I've talked to that various gypsy bands may well hide terrorists and others on the serious lam (for cash, of course), but the evidence remains elusive. Still, these folks are remarkably mobile, and their ability to stay off various governmental databases is troubling.
Sheila| 7.28.09 @ 2:31PM
A romanticized account, indeed. I both observed and dealt with the Roma in Bulgaria (and not as a tourist). Their exclusion is not mere prejudice by the locals; they actively reject any integration into society and decline any local education. For the author to demand that they receive such education, free of charge, as de facto illegal immigrants in Western Europe, is both foolish and absurd - the Roma themselves do not want it. Same goes for jobs - most decline work when available - and hygiene - there was no lack of running water in Sofia and the Roma encampment was beyond filthy. A friend ended up adopting a Roma boy, and each time she got him back from his mother (who no longer wanted him because her new lover wasn't the boy's father) he had to be extensively deloused. Perhaps Michael Johnson could get a more accurate picture if he left the colorful confines of Bordeaux, and the comfortable assumption of instant acceptance and trust by being a confidant of a member of "Doctors of the World," and travelled in Eastern Europe where the locals have dealt with the Roma for far longer. The only place to have actually bested the Roma, that I have read of, is Northern Ireland - where the recent immigrated Roma almost begged to leave . I guess the Northern Irish haven't gotten the memo yet about universal acceptance and racism. But then, Mr. Johnson's are merely the usual liberal assumptions about the universality of mankind cloaked in conservatism that I've come to expect at this website.
KyMouse| 7.28.09 @ 3:37PM
I imagine it will take a great deal of effort, love or whatever to assimilate the Roma into normal society. My own experience with them was similar to those written above:
In 1990, on a trip through the USSR, my friends and I encountered many "gypsies" in train stations and on streets. In the train stations, the little kids would come up to us and beg, while the adults stood back, watching. Even the littlest kids would pat our pockets to find where our wallets were, and the adults were no doubt watching in order to do the picking ASAP. One child even prostrated himself at the feet of one member of our group, and kissed one of her shoes -- anything to get a sympathetic reaction.
All of us had been warned not to give them any money, but one woman opened her purse and gave a child some cash. A bit later, when she needed to pay for something, she discovered that almost all of her money was gone.
When one of our folks gave a small toy to one of the gypsy youngsters, he took it over to a girl who I assume was his older sister. She took one look at it and hit him across the face. Then she took the toy away from him.
While walking down the street in Budapest one afternoon, a friend and I were shadowed by a gypsy girl and her younger brother (not the same ones mentioned above, I'm sure). He tried to pick my friend's pocket; when she grabbed his hand, the girl turned on him, hit him, and tried to act outraged that he was trying to steal.
Our guides and bus drivers often spoke of them after such encounters, and talked about them as if they were subhuman. After experiencing how the regular residents felt about them, and how the gypsies treated each other, I developed such a feeling of despair about the whole situation. I don't want my pocket picked, and I hated seeing toddlers taught how to manipulate people, steal from them, and generally treat people like prey. A terrible situation for all concerned.
Doorgunner| 7.28.09 @ 4:04PM
Thanks, KyMouse,
I was waiting for at least one person to be sympathetic to the kids. I completed a KFOR rotation a couple years ago, most of it spent crewing the U.S. commander's aircraft. The hatred between the remaining -and even fewer returning- Serbs and the Kosovars was... beyond belief. During the active conflict the way to poison an enemy's well was to slit the belly of the enemy's child and throw him in. But yet, there was one thing Serbs and Kosovars agreed on- hatred of the Roma. Just outside Camp Bondsteel is the village of Klokot. We used to land on the soccer field there often; you had to be careful not to step in pig s**t once you landed. After the our pax would leave the area the kids would show up; Serbs on one side of the airframe, Kosovars on the other. A couple times a little girl showed up maybe nine years old, very dark haired and green-eyed. She wasn't part of either group; one of the Serb boys told me she was Roma. We frequently passed out pens, pencils, candy, whatever we could get donated from home to the kids. I made the mistake of of giving her some trinkets. I resisted drawing my sidearm the few times I saw the Kosovar kids chase, with knives, the Serb Kids; it was harder to keep holstered when I saw the beat-down she took for her dollar's worth of crap.
It's okay, I suppose to hate an adult for being a scoundrel; not so much though, to hate a child for the sins of the parent.
KyMouse| 7.28.09 @ 4:44PM
Good points, Doorgunner. Hard to believe that any city or society can go back to square one and start over, when there is this kind of animosity on all sides. And the littlest kids are, as always, at the bottom of the pecking order.
I don't know if this is true, but I've always heard that gypsies rationalize their stealing by claiming that some first-century gypsy ancestor stole the final (fourth?) nail that would have been used to hang Jesus on the cross. That good deed, fabula est, gave them carte blanche to steal for the rest of time.
If that story really is what's taught to the children, how much MORE difficult would it be to teach them, later in life, that stealing is wrong? It's bad enough to do it because your family says it's okay (and necessary for survival), but to do it because it's your God-given right....
Thanks for your selfless service. God bless ya.
shaggydave| 7.28.09 @ 6:43PM
I hove no personal experience with gypsies, but my girlfriend is from Gaeta, Italy (if any of you are navy people you might know it) and she has nothing good to say about gypsies. She's not a racist or intolerant person it just seems that everyone hates them and maybe for good reason. Italians don't like Albanians either. Reading about the children being indoctrinated into crime reminded me of a part of The Gulag Archipeligo where Solzhenitsyn is talking about the russian mafia (or Theives, as he put it.)
I remember seeing a news report out of Naples last year where a gypsy was caught comming out of an apartment building with someone else's baby. The neapolitans started rioting and the military had to be called in to protect the gypsies.
Ted| 7.28.09 @ 6:46PM
I lived in two cities in Spain for a total of about two years, and in both cities I lived close to the gypsy enclaves, without planning it that way. I came to distinguish two types of gypsies: the roaming, thieving, good-for-nothing types that other commenters have mentioned, and the type that put down roots, buy homes, and start legitimate businesses. The former, I won't even look at on the street; the latter I found to be just like anyone else.
Keith W. Brown| 7.28.09 @ 7:07PM
Look, I live in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria & work with Roma or Gypsies. They are a difficult people. Most marry young 12-16 yrs. old, they value having large families, don't value eduation at all & do not plan for the future. We have some success working with the children. We keep them in school, teach them work values & impress on them that it is foolish to marry young with no job or education. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian government has re-inforced the concept that the gov't should provide for all of their needs. This started during Commie times & continues. Many Roma do not want to work. Drinking & laying around all day are quite common. So, the big mistake the EU made was allowing them to leave Romania & Bulgaria. Most of the prostitutes in Europe are Bulgarian Roma from our area. The ones that don't get jobs steal or beg. The EU needs to limit their ability to leave Bulgaria & insist that they prove they have jobs in other nations. So, the Euros are simply reaping what they have sown, much like our illegal immigrant problem in the States.
Tim| 7.29.09 @ 10:16AM
"the usual liberal assumptions about the universality of mankind cloaked in conservatism that I've come to expect at this website. "
What a thing to say.
Trackback| 2.4.10 @ 4:25PM
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