WALKING FROM HOPELESSNESS TO HORROR – The Romanian Gypsies.

I am not an academic researcher, I am not a journalist, I am a novelist who has known the Gypsy people for most of my life. I am a European by origin who has grown up in World War II. Then too people were persecuted and nailed to the cross, anybody in Germany who did not agree with the Nazis. We were lucky insofar that we were never caught and trapped in those death camps at the mercy of common men turned full-time abusers. Through massacres and ever present death, what gave us wings was hope in a world on the other side of war.

I am sure it is what held Romanian Gypsies/Roma together and going. In Romania they were enslaved until 1865, again I am no academic researcher, but that is what I have read over and over - then pushed out of sight into abject poverty and neglect, no human rights, no opportunity. But, and this is merely human, I am convinced that hope kept them believing in a better future, somewhere down the line.

Europe Unites. The barriers to their prisons FINALLY opened. The day, I am sure, they had been praying for over a century has become reality. Their leaders, those with knowledge of the world on the other side of the invisible barbed wire that has kept them closed off from the world at large, warns them. They do not have the tools to survive in the modern world, they never had access to them.

Again, I compare their destiny to my own. Walking out of the world of war where hope had made life despite it all even beautiful at moments, we walked into the aftermath, where a whole culture lay bombed to the ground and the horrible truth of Nazi persecutions now lay bare, destroying all remaining beliefs in humanity.

Again, racial hatred is out of the bag, is spreading as Europe is nailing her Gypsies to the cross.

Florida: EVICTION OF GYPSY/ROMA FROM THEIR ONE-OF-A-KIND CHURCH

There I sit, long-time Gypsy activist, present at the latest episode of an 11 year old struggle to evict Roma Christians from their church in Broward county, the first all Gypsy church I had ever come across. Nor had I come across a Gypsy leader, this one a Roma pastor, who remained in place defending the rights of his people. In Europe Gypsies have been persecuted for the 600 years they have lived in Western culture, but, this is America, I proudly thought.

The half-circle of county commissioners, deciders of the fate of this very special church, sit on the elevated stage ahead of us and are still dealing with main county business - money money money - thrown back and forth like ping pong balls.

I happen to also be a survivor of and witness to Nazi persecutions, baggage that remains grafted to my brain. So now I am eyeing those in whose hands lies the fate of my religious friends. I have no reason to trust bureaucrats, for the Nazis within all the chaos and tragedies they caused remained superb bureaucrats, everything was done by the book, their book. So now I am eying this set of bureaucrats in front of me with caution. To my relief I note that they are of mixed ethnicity and gender. Seven, I remember, women, two men. White, Jewish, Black. I have 3 minutes to convince them of the symbolic value of this missionary church, its importance reaching way beyond Broward County, for once again, Gypsies, now known as Roma, are being openly persecuted all across Europe. My life has come full circle. So called to the podium, I speak of the renewed, “silent persecution” of Europe’s now largest, most vulnerable minority. How, this pastor is trying to recruit Roma missionaries to go teach Roma abroad to help themselves, the uniqueness of this church. That this is precisely what America stands for, a symbol of what raises us, Americans, morally above all other countries I know and have lived in.

Deliberations resume. The black man, new member on the board, starts speaking on the Gypsies’ behalf, but - backs away. Heigh, I think, he’s new on the block. The one white man, vice-mayor off (I believe) Broward county speaks up, hero of my soul, about the purpose behind the eviction now, there are no permits issued, the Roma are paying their bills, they are a positive presence in an area of rehab centers, looking industrial. So

Why?

The women speak up, misspeak. One young black lady says – falsely so – the Gypsies haven’t been paying their bills, and that she got this from channel 7. Which rightfully infuriates the Gypsy pastor, who has paid his bills, always, he has gone by the book, always. He is not allowed to speak, at first, because he’s not on the list. But then he talks anyway, he has proof of not being delinquent in payments or anything else, ever reminding them

This is a CHURCH!

Question is, I thought, would it have happened to any other church, temple, religious institution involving anybody else but GYPSIES, now called Roma?

Once again, presiding women take center stage: They want to get it over with, be done with it, enough already. Moneymoneymoney, that has changed hands, etc. etc. etc. Once again, flashbacks to my past, where you had a better chance arguing for your life with a fish in the ocean than with a German bureaucrat. So here too, I was horrified at the heartless reaction of these women of different ethnic backgrounds who had been given the power to make decisions of this importance.

Branded Thief - At Birth!

When I was fist asked, now years ago, to address a small group of people to talk about a subject I have now been writing about for over 10 years, namely to talk about Gypsies, Roma as they are rightfully called now, a matronly lady piped up from the back row asking “aren’t those the ones that steal?” Not once, but interrupting my initially rather academic talk, over and over again, with “aren’t they the ones that steal?” Until, I finally stopped my neatly prepared little talk and rather sharply retorted, “Have they ever stolen from you, personally, Mrs……?” The lady blushed, and I continued with my talk.

The other day in the dog park, I was talking to an educated gentleman, a cosmopolitan European about the present persecutions of European Roma, when to my surprise he started telling me how “these people pick a village clean”. Taken aback, and at this point passionately involved in the Roma cause, I asked him, “please tell me what you have personally witnessed along those accusations toward the Gypsy people!” The next day he approached me and said, “I personally have not witnessed anything of the sort, I guess I have fallen into the trap of repeating prejudicial beliefs.”

Now I want to go over to other side. Imagine yourself being born Roma. Two very close friends of mine, both highly intelligent, both evangelical pastors, both of them had not been denied the privilege of formal education, both self-taught and intellectual by nature. They talked to me about the pain of being dismissed as inferior, even criminal by birth - declared criminal without any justification.

One person close to me actually was pick-pocketed by Gypsy kids in the streets of Rome. I had to explain to him the why. Gypsies in Italy arriving from the Baltic states where they have a history of slavery and severe marginalization, are denied all rights, all possibilities to earn an honest living. The children learn how to steal to survive, because they cannot be thrown into jail. If the parents get caught, leaving their children behind, they will starve to death.

As I have written before, during the war, when food and shelter meant survival, I knew not one person who did not steal. I did. Even the Catholic declared that “Mundraub”, stealing food for survival was not a sin.

Branding a Roma thief at birth is to inflict a deep and lasting wound, a handicap that is hard to overcome. Here in America we have about a million Roma. On a recent radio interview my host remarked “One doesn’t ever read about them in the papers over here,” meaning criminal activity. “That’s because,” I said, “given only the slightest chance they are like everybody else. They are Americans first, Roma by inherited culture; a beautiful culture which I am trying hard to give justice to.”

Prejudice is a dangerous phenomenon. Prejudice can kill, it is killing Roma in Europe as I am writing this. Do not be a silent by-stander, stand up for human rights for all.

The Lure of the Open Road - The Spirit of Nomadism

Like the wild geese I love, come late Fall I pack up to migrate south - 1500 + miles by car. “Why don’t you fly,” a fifty-year young man asked me. “Because,” I said, “for one, I am taking my animals. “ Only 2 dogs now, versus the several horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats and one bonsai tree I used to load up and caravan to the South. “But most of all,” I added, “I love the open road.” Leaving all the unnecessary junk we all accumulate behind, taking only the strictly necessary and driving into change - of weather, of landscape, of people. My mind is wide open as to what lies ahead, the unexpected. It’s like turning your face into the wind and letting your soul fly.

I grew up nomadic. Because of our flight from the Nazis, by the time I was 7, I knew nothing but war and moving on, always moving on - leaving behind memories of massacres, killing fields, ambushes and round-ups. It almost felt as if by walking on you could bury the horror underfoot. So that, for a long time, I only remembered moments of beauty. To this day, the howling of the wolves sends goose bumps down my spine. For then, their howling reassured us that for the moment all was safe, that right then no strange intruder was lurking about. Then there were those moments after the bombs stopped falling, the shooting stopped and the life of the forest resumed in full force. I thought of those years as happy, maybe because I was too young to see beyond our own survival.

The horror started when the so-called “Peace” trapped me in the place where I was born – Cologne, Germany, the place where I was told I must now settle down. A place in ruin, a place foreign to me, infested with rats and crime, a place of defeat, where I had to fester amidst the true horror of it all now out in the open. I had survived the war in freedom, but would I survive the peace forced upon me in a place of entrapment with people I grew up to consider as my enemies. The hopelessness of the war’s aftermath would never quite leave me.

Roma/Gypsies in Romania have lived under hopelessness far greater than what I experienced. Enslaved until 1865, exploited and scorned ever since, when a United Europe opened borders that had confined before, those Roma followed the first sign of hope ever, only to be flung back into a misery greater than the one they left.

Open your hearts to these most vulnerable people who have been part of our Western culture for over 600 years. Unite in the demand for their human rights.

The Howling Of The Wolf!

For a long time I didn't remember seeing them. But I remember their
howling, like true Gypsy music it went right to my heart. It enabled my
soul to lift above my body and fly. Taste the beauty of freedom. For I
knew that while the wolves howled, we were safe in those forests, or in
those abandoned buildings, where we hid getting away from Nazi killers,
or anybody else who killed before asking questions in the war zones of
World War II. For who knew the forest better than the highly
intelligent wolf? Always on the prowl, communicating with each other,
they knew before anybody else if there was an intruder, a killer on the
prowl. Then, a few days ago, while walking my beloved pooch around a
pond, I noticed a black dog standing in the water and intensely staring
at his feet. That's when I remembered a wolf, like the dog, fishing.
Then other memories came back, witnessing a wolf, almost playfully
jumping up and down, while catching mice. "It's what they live off," my
father told me.

I buried most of my memories of war in order to be able to walk into the
future, but wolves left their imprint on my soul. I have since studied
them through reading. They live by moral codes we most value in man:
they choose a mate for life, they are loyal to each other, they both
care for the pups, and in fact the whole extended family does. I've have
never heard of a wolf attacking man, except maybe in self-defense.

We must stop the killing of this noble and beautiful creature. Look into
his human eyes! Killing them from the air for sport, is abhorrent,
sub-human. Save the American Wolf!

The Legend Of When Roma Still Had Wings….

Longing for the gift of freedom….(Photo L. Kuznetsova)

And those forced to live on the ground envied the Roma people their beautiful wings, with which they were able to soar in freedom high above the misery below. That was the way of Gypsy life until the day they were lured out of the sky by an open courtyard glittering with gold and precious Stones. From the moment they landed, blinded by greed for the glistening treasures, dark ravens robbed the Gypsy people of their magical wings. It was from then on, that Roma were forced to cross the land of the Gadje like everyone else on the ground.

Adieu To A Rrom I…Sadly…Never Knew.

[Roma Virtual Network]: Died: 24 December, 2009, in East Kilbridge, aged 60.

Alexander Kennedy “Elic was a great character who lived life to the full. He had a great sense of fun and loved engaging with people from all walks of life. He loved nothing better than taking his vardo (traditional Romany wagon) to what is now left of the traditional Gypsy gatherings such as St. Boswells, Brough Hill and Appleby. The first thing he would do was light up a “stick fire” where everybody would congregate and pass the time of day. Whether you were Giorgio..” (non-Gypsy) ..”or Gypsy Traveller you would walk away with a history lesson. If you hung about long enough, and many did, you would get a right good feed from the many pots cooking over the fire (nouvelle cuisine was certain not on his menu).”

To me nothing could describe the beauty and true humanity of traditional Gypsy life better than the above paragraph. I was very fortunate to have been invited in my younger days into circles of this beautiful culture. Many have tried to snuff out that culture as if it were merely the flickering light of a lone candle. But that culture has survived against all odds. I have personally met a Roma leader of that deep humanity right here in the U.S.A. Many of those I knew in Europe have passed on, men and women. But the Roma culture will go on giving birth to such selfless, noble character as the above Alexander Kennedy. May God protect Europe’s Roma, and let us down here on earth give him a strong helping hand.

Needed Urgently By European Roma: A Bridge To Hope

Nothing illustrates this better than a short documentary made by
award-winning filmmaker Arpad Bogdan. For years I have received
invaluable information from Roma Virtual Network. I received this link
through them. I implore my friends and fellow Roma activists to help me
get this urgent call for help into American newspapers, radios, and
Television stations.

http://www.romadecade.org/life_on_the_edge_darkness_on_the_edge_of_town_2009

The European Roma you'll meet in this documentary, are the same Roma
I've known and loved since my early years. Let's link hands and help.
Leave a comment on this blog, let's find a way.

Europe’s Last Remaining Wall

It's a wall that was started 500 years ago. It's invisible. It is the
wall that separates Europe from her largest minority –the Gypsy people.
Ever since they first set foot on European soil, they were stripped,
layer after layer, of the essence of their harmonious culture – the
freedom to travel, which in turn curtailed the plying of their trades,
the performing of their ancient crafts and the display of their talents
in music and dance, their art.

Increasingly they were pushed into the shadows of Europe's many
cultures, without in return according them the most basic human rights.
They received no schooling to adjust to cultures that were foreign to
them. They were not protected by the prevailing laws of the land. Often
their only means of survival was theft and other petty crimes. This in
turn, reinforced the mediaeval perception of the Gypsy as thief, as
lazy, as untrustworthy. Contrary to many racist misconceptions, Roma are
not criminal by nature, even the Nazis admitted there was no crime among
nomadic Gypsies. Crime among Roma themselves is extremely rare, and
severely condemned and punished by their own.

The time has come for the new United Europe to tear down this last
remaining wall, give the Romani culture the same respect it offers all
other European cultures, reverse this trend of pushing the Roma into
abject poverty and thereby petty crimes in order to survive. The Roma
are an intelligent, peace-loving people. Many have long since integrated
into the majority population. After centuries of marginalization, abuse
and humiliation, the rest of them, the poorest, the most vulnerable
deserve to be helped with patience, education, love and understanding to
join the dignity and right to a decent life accorded to all other
Europeans.

GYPSY DIVINATION, PART 1: THE REAL THING

Having known Gypsies or Roma for most of my life, I have always looked upon fortune-telling as a form of entertainment, to my eyes harmless entertainment. I myself, whenever life dealt me a dirty blow and I needed my spirits lifted, rather than seeing a psychiatrist, who would approach my problem by digging it up and spreading it wide, I personally did not hesitate to visit a fortune-teller instead. Placed in cozy surroundings, it is in such a person’s interest to make me feel better, otherwise no return business. By the way, I never sought out a Gypsy for that sort of service, knowing how they feel about it, and afraid that with their keen eyes they would read what I knew about them, namely that those with the true gift would hardly steep down to the entertainment business.

So what about the true gift? Not only born to it but born with the patience to develop and belief in their natural abilities? Urania Boswell, was born in 1852 in England and became famous for her special sensitivity to the approach of danger and/or death. She was able to predict not only the time of her son’s and brother’s death, but the year of Queen Victoria’s death, four years before it happened. Such power not only impressed non-Gypsies, or gadje, but it is a power that frightens fellow Gypsies.

I myself, ever since I was a child growing up with partisans and people on the run in the woods of Germany and Poland during World War II, had this horrible sensitivity to feel either the actual moment of death of people close to me but fighting at great distances away, or foresee the early death of people I love. Something to think about.

THE DANGEROUS ABSENCE OF WOMEN IN GYPSY LEADERSHIP

Friday, October 2, 2009 [Roma Daily News]:

“Gypsy women consider themselves as inferior to men and vulnerable because of lack of education, a Soros survey has revealed. Gypsy women have low self-esteem and are vulnerable to poverty, lack of social assistance and illnesses provoked by repeated early pregnancies.”

A society where leadership is balanced by male and female input is proven to serve its people best. Women will add the necessary caution for survival to male leadership which may exhibit too much aggression. Studies of dealing with juvenile delinquency have shown that the girls in young men’s life are often the best means to bridle their lawlessness. There are indeed among Gypsy tribes, namely the Lovara, the horse-dealers, where leadership at the top was divided between a male and a female leader. Unfortunately, among today’s Roma majority, the women are indeed kept suppressed and illiterate. If this is subconsciously maintained to enhance the confidence of Roma men, and as a result they have a lot of self-interested, divisive male leaders, these leaders are not only cutting their own flesh, but that of their people. Roma must unite. Their women’s voices have to be heard. They have to stand as equals, side by side, to avert the disaster that is brewing all over Europe, and if successful there, will spread like a virus to Roma over here as well.

ROMA LEADERSHIP IN THIS CRUCIAL TIME OF RENEWED PERSECUTION

As per except from Policy Center for Roma and Minorities [Roma Daily News]:

“The Roma community’s leadership is weak. The Roma suffer from bitter infighting. Successful, integrated Roma are either afraid to admit that they are Roma or care little about the conditions less-fortunate, and more visible maligned Roma suffer.”

Part of the survival technique of Gypsies/Roma while still nomadic, was the wise choice of a leader. Leadership was not hereditary, but elected by the tribe. A leader had to be intelligent, a shrewd manipulator and tradesman, most of all he had to set the interest of his tribe high above his own. He took care of his people first and foremost. In certain tribes, like the Lovara, leadership at the top was divided between a male and an elder female leader. They brought different sets of insights to the art of survival. Roma leaders of today, and I am referring to Europe, are often lured by government agencies and NGO’s to step forward as spokesmen and leaders of their tribes to negotiate with the outside world. This usually brings to these chosen individuals advantages and privileges, i.e. easier access to work and money grants. Mostly such opportunities turn into self-interest, corrupting these chosen individuals from the start into offering lip service to the donors and leaving the neediest Gypsies more and more isolated to fend for themselves. Although in this world of shrinking living space Gypsies will have to adjust, they must return to some of the valuable qualities of their former way of life. Theirs was a beautiful, harmonious culture.

DESPERATE STREET CHILDREN MOVING FROM EAST TO WESTERN EUROPE

Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife reports from Budapest, Hungary:

“There are believed to be a quarter of a million street children in Europe, although officials cautioned that figure may be higher because as many as 1.5 millions young gypsies, also known as Roma, are ‘unregistered.’”

These children have no voice to speak up for them, no defenses, no food. They are the unprotected targets of crimes and vices of the most debasing kind. Many come from Romania, a country where Roma were traded as slaves for 550 years, and where under Ceausescu’ s nazi-like regime, women were denied birth control, and rewarded to have children they could not afford to keep.

When they steal to survive, these victims of our society are declared criminals and undesirables. Where is the hope, the help for these martyrs of our culture.

Roma Community Facing Forced Eviction

[ROMA DAILY NEWS]
CALL FROM AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL FOR URGENT ACTION: Roma Community Facing Forced Eviction.

This would destroy yet another community of 200 Roma people, leaving them without possessions or place to live as families. I wrote the following letter to the Mayor of Milano, Italy, with cc. to the Newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’ in Milano, and the ‘International Herald Tribune’ in Paris.

[ROMA DAILY NEWS]

CALL FROM AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL FOR URGENT ACTION: Roma Community Facing Forced Eviction.

This would destroy yet another community of 200 Roma people, leaving them without possessions or place to live as families. I wrote the following letter to the Mayor of Milano, Italy, with cc. to the Newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’ in Milano, and the ‘International Herald Tribune’ in Paris.

Re: Eviction of Roma/Gypsies from Rubattino area

Dear Dott. Lombardi,

My name is Sonia Meyer. I grew up after World War II in a very distinguished Jewish family of highly distinguished scientists. One of my uncles (by marriage) earned a Nobel Prize in physics. I had the honor of meeting in person Italy’s greatest physicist Enrico Fermi, a poetic man in person. In the States I met many distinguished Italian Jewish refugees from Italy. All these people, despite fascism, never lost their love for the Italian people, who they felt were not their true enemies. Many of them returned to the country they loved to spend their last years of life.

I am afraid these same people would turn in their graves, if they learned what is happening to their beloved country. The Gypsy people are not strangers on European soil. They’ve lived among us for over 600 years. They are our highly artistic, maybe at times stubborn and hard to manage, European brothers and sisters. I was born in Germany and, although my family went underground during the Hitler regime and my blood is very mixed, I feel shame for whatever little German blood flows in my veins. Don’t leave that same heritage to your children.

It is not too late, stop the eviction of your fellow Europeans from the Rubattino Camp. I could personally try to get Roma leaders here in the United States to send their own people over to try and work out possible solutions. In fact Gypsies have no reason to trust non-Gypsies, their lives have had nothing but tragedy since they arrived on European soil. I believe, and I have dealt with Roma for a great part of my life, it would be best to start involving Roma to deal with Roma. It would be an effort that would show very positive results in a short time.

I am available to you if I can be of help. I realize the economic situation everywhere makes life difficult for many countries, but let’s try to solve problems in a way that makes us proud to be human.

Sincerely,

Sonia Meyer