The Roma is a people group that lives in much of Europe. The more common, but less politically correct name is gypsy. The Roma migrated from northern India over 1000 years ago. I find it interesting that we are working with this population the month prior to actually going to India. The Roma originally fled India as a result of a the Arab vs Turkish War. They arrived in Turkey where they were persecuted severely. The persecution in Turkey led to the Roma moving to Romania and Bulgaria where they were often enslaved, but not immediately killed.
From Romania and Bulgaria, the Roma have spread to all of Europe.
The Roma are a marginalized community in much of Europe. During WWII, over 1 million Roma were executed as part of Hilter's plans to remove all non-"Aryan" blood from Europe. This has not been recognized in much of Europe and the Roma were given no reparations following the war. Many countries still have "gypsy" laws on their books that allow for legal persecution and racial profiling is common. When I was living in the Czech Republic, I at times saw this persecution first-hand as a teammate dated a Roma guy and was ostracized by some friends and family. In 2010, France worked to expel a Roma community of around 1,000 from within its borders. Currently, a group of Roma people are being moved out of the city of Cluj in Romania to a more remote an environmentally less friendly area.
Official numbers for Roma are difficult to find as many Roma hide their racial identity out of fear of persecution. Those that could be counted are often are unregistered in the countries where they live because of their lifestyle.
The area we are currently living in has a very high population of Roma people and many are extremely impoverished.
As we leave the grocery store we often have Roma children approach us begging for money. In Stoborasti this past week, we also saw the Roma culture in which people use horse-drawn wagons to sell goods to local residents. It is a transient culture that is vastly underserved around Europe.
We saw lots of carts like these. This one is selling wood around the village of Stoborasti. The asked me to take their picture so I gladly did.
The churches we are partnering with are working hard to reach this group, but it does not remove the economic and political challenges that the Roma face on a daily basis.
