The Gypsy’s Holocaust

Bibliografie: Ancel Jean, Contribuții la Istoria României. Problema evreiască 1933-1944, vol. I, București, 2001, partea a II-a Catalin Zamfir, E. Zamfir, Țiganii între ignorare și îngrijorare, Editura Alta, 1993 Cornelia Bodea, 1848 la români. O istorie în date şi mărturii, Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1982 A. Duțu, M. Retegan, Război și societate, vol. 1, RAO, 2000 George Sion, « Emanciparea ţiganilor», în Suvenire contemporane, București, 1888 George Potra, Contribuţuni la istoricul ţiganilor din România, Mihail Dascăl Editor, Bucureşti, 2002 E. Pons, De la Robie la asimilare P. Petcuț, D. Grigore, M. Sandu, Istoria şi tradiţiile romilor, manual pentru clasa a VII-a, Ed. Ro Media, Bucureşti, 2003 Panaitescu I.C., Robii. Aspecte ţigăneşti // Bucureşti: Tipografiile României Unite, 1928 Pravila lui Vasile Lupu - un cod de legi adoptat în 1646. http://www.tipariturivechi.ro/document/pravile-imparatesti Viorel Achim, Ţiganii în Istoria României, Editura Enciclopedică, București, 1998

Teacher Dide Amalia Larisa Costina “Constantin Noica” Theoretical High School, Alexandria, Teleorman County

On October 3, 1385, the first documentary attestation of gypsy slavery on Romanian territory took place when the ruler of Wallachia, Dan I, confirmed the donation of 40 “gypsy” dwellings of Tismana Monastery, donated by Vladislav Vodita Monastery, about 20 years before. The document confirms that "40 gypsy settlements will be free from all jobs and hopes for the income of my reign." In Transylvania, around the 1400s, a boyar Costea ruled in the Land of Făgăraş the villages: Viştea de Jos, Viştea de Sus and half of Arpaşul de Jos, "as well as 17 tent gypsies". In Moldavia, the Roma are mentioned for the first time, in an act from August 2, 1414, from the time of Alexander the Good, who gave 3 villages to Pan Toader Pitic, for his faithful service: a village in Cobâla, where his house, where you are was Veris Stanislav, and another village at the mouth of Jeravaţ, where it falls in Bârlad, namely where there were cneji (of gypsies) Lie and Gypsies, and the third village on Bârlad, where he has another house of his, where there are of gypsies) Tamas and Ivan ”.

In the Romanian Lands, slavery was not identical with slavery in Transylvania, Romania in Wallachia or the neighborhood in Moldova. To the dependent peasant, the boyar was not the absolute master, but to the slave, he was the absolute master, being able to sell him or to have the right of life and death over him. Vaillant, "if the peasant is a Serb, the gypsy is entirely a slave ...", "the state sells [the gypsies], the individuals buy them, and the monks are also outstretched."110 In the two Principalities, there were several categories of slaves: princely, monastic and boyar.111 Through the trades they exercised, the gypsy slaves brought the master numerous incomes and performed any kind of work required of him by the master. They came into their possession through the sale-purchase or gift transaction. At the same time, the living conditions in which they lived daily were inhumane.112 Among the trades practiced by them were: farmers, foresters, gardeners, maids, housekeepers, cooks, laundresses, maids, tailors, pitari, visitors, birjari, shoemakers, fiddlers, argatians, caretakers and animal breeders. The gypsy slave was considered a good mover, the master being able to put him to any kind of work, he could sell or buy it, leave a legacy, he could assign various punishments to him without being held accountable. However, they did not have the right to take their lives. In Transylvania, the gypsies were not slaves, but were under the jurisdiction of the cities they lived near. During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Empress Maria Theresa and later her son Joseph II initiated a policy of forced assimilation of the Roma. Therefore, the gypsies are forbidden to live in tents and they could no longer own horses or carts, they were not allowed to move from one place to another, they had to pay taxes, etc.113 On June 19, 1783, in Chernivtsi, Emperor Joseph II issued an order abolishing slavery in Bukovina, but the boyars and monasteries did not want to give up unpaid labor at their disposal. They argued that the state of slavery is “the most suitable for gypsies, being to the advantage of gypsies.114 On August 22, 1785, Joseph II granted a patent abolishing slavery in Transylvania. A year later, “in 1786, an imperial ordinance on servants was issued. Their relationships with their owners had to be voluntary and based on a contract with them."115 According to the Organic Regulations of Wallachia - 1831 and Moldova - 1832 were annexed Regulations for improving the fate of state gypsies (in Wallachia) and "Regulation for the stabilization of gypsies" (Moldova) which provided: liquidation of nomadism, their occupation of land, distribution of 5-6 gypsy families in a village to disperse, etc.116 In 1834, Ioan Câmpineanu was the first boyar to release his Roma slaves, whom he had inherited from his parents.117

110 E. Pons, From Robie to Assimilation, p. 16. 111 Pravila lui Vasile Lupu - a code of legislation adopted in 1646. http://www.tipariturivechi.ro/document/pravileimparatesti 112 G. Potra, Contributions to the historians of the Romanian gypsies, Mihail Dascal Publishing House, 2002, p. 31 113 Viorel Achim, Gypsies in the History of Romania, Encyclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998, p. 215 114 Ibidem 115 P. Petcuț, D. Grigore, M. Sandu, Istoria şi tradiţiileromilor, textbook for class VII, Ro Media Publishing House, Bucharest, 2003, p. 57 116 Panaitescu I.C., „Slaves. Aspecteţigăneşti ”// Bucharest: TipografiileRomâniei Unite, 1928, p. 35-40 117 George Potra, Contributions to the historians of the Romanian gypsies, Mihail Dascal Editor, Bucharest, 2002, p.103

On March 22, 1843, the first law was issued in Wallachia by which the princely slaves were released: "Law for the abolition of the dajnics under the administration of the Vornicia of the Dungeons and their passing under the administration of the county rulers".118 On January 31, 1844, the monastery slaves were released in Moldova by Mihail Sturdza. Thus, the Law "for the regularization of the gypsies of the metropolis, of the bishoprics and of the monasteries in general" is adopted.119 The Pasoptist revolutionaries from Wallachia included in their Program of June 9, 1848, the "liberation of the gypsies through compensation", being constituted the "Commission for the release of slaves", formed by Cezar Bolliac, Ioasaf Znagoveanu and Petrache Poenaru, which issued even 20,000 "tickets freedom”.120 In fact, in the "Wishes of the National Party in Moldavia", in August 1848, in Chernivtsi, the abolition of slavery was demanded.121 However, with the defeat of the 1848 revolution, the gypsy problem remained unchanged. Impressed by the suicide of a young Gypsy cook who committed suicide because he was not free to marry a free young woman, Mr. Grigore Ghica decided, in December 1855, to release the Gypsies from Moldova.122 In Moldavia, on December 10, 1855, Prince Grigorie Alexandru Ghica abolished slavery by “legislating for the abolition of slavery, regulating compensation and passing the emancipated to pay taxes.123 On February 20, 1856, in Wallachia, Mr. Barbu Ştirbei abolished slavery by "Legislation for the emancipation of all gypsies in the Principality of Wallachia", by compensation.124 The liberated gypsies did not receive land or very little for which they had to pay very large donations. They began to find occupations such as metal and wood processing and other occupations such as buying and selling empty bottles or guessing, begging.125 During the Second World War, Ion Antonescu discussed on February 7, 1941, the removal of the Roma from Bucharest, invoking public and social criteria, not racial. Ion Antonescu wanted to build 3-4 compact villages in Bărăgan, with 5,000–6,000 families each, and, after rehabilitating the Danube Ponds, to move them there to engage in fishing. Thus, Marshal Ion Antonescu, at the beginning of May 1942, issued the Order of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers no. 26,756 / 1942 to the Ministry of Internal Affairs by which he asked him to undertake all studies and steps in this regard. In 1942, Ion Antonescu ordered the deportation to Transnistria of 24,617 Romanian citizens of gypsy ethnicity, half of whom survived and returned to Romania. About 11,000 died of cold, starvation and epidemics.126

118 Romanian Parliamentary Annals, XII / 1, Bucharest, (1890-1915), pp. 301-304 119 Parliamentary Annals of Romania, XII / 2, Bucharest, (1890-1915), p. 424) 120 Cornelia Bodea, 1848 in Romanian. A history in the date of the testimony, Scientific and Encyclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1982, pp. 536-537 121 Ibidem 122 George Sion, Emancipation of the Gypsies, in Contemporary Souvenirs, Bucharest, 1888 123 Viorel Achim, Gypsies in the History of Romania, Encyclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998 124 George Potra, Contributions to Romanian Gypsy Historians, Mihail Dascal Editor, Bucharest, 2002, p. 109 125 Catalin Zamfir, E. Zamfir, Gypsies in Intercourse and Concern, Alta Publishing House, 1993 126 A. Duțu, M. Retegan, War and society, vol. I, RAO, 2000; Jean Ancel, Contributions to the History of Romania. Jewish Problem 1933-1944, vol. I, Bucharest, 2001, part II, pp. 111-142

I could not have finished my paper without a case study. Thus, asking my ethnic students if they have grandparents or great-grandparents who lived through such events, I discovered Ionela Nina Lincan, of Roma ethnicity after her mother. I will tell you what this wonderful 10th grade student wrote to me, Marghiola Năstase's great-granddaughter, from Vitănești commune, Siliștea village, Teleorman county, who was 10 years old at the time of deportation. ,,Asking many people and trying to gather information about this hell to which the Roma were subjected, I found a gentle, troubled man who told the story of the gypsy holocaust in tears. “On September 10, 1942, they picked us up with gendarmes and police at 6 o'clock in the morning. They took us to some stables, on the outskirts of Alexandria and there after 2 weeks they took us to Turnu Măgurele, and then we arrived in Transnistria in a cattle train. I worked in agriculture. In December, they took us elsewhere, and there were over 25,000 gypsies and we had no heat, the only food we had was 400g of flour, we had no water. You had to walk in the field, I didn't even have buckets. At 8 o'clock in the morning, the cart with the gendarme and the policeman left, they went from house to house, which was dead, took him to the edge of the commune where there were some trenches left after the war and threw him out of the cart. In February, more than half were cleaned. When the cold had to come again, the governor told us to get in carts that would take us to Romania, it was not true. They took us to a farm with 7 stables, a lot of gypsies gathered and put in stables, we stayed there until the end of April and then they kicked us out of the stable. A Romanian gendarme gave us some papers that said that the gypsies were being evacuated. From there, we went in a column to Tiraspol, we walked 5-7 km, without food. When we arrived in Tiraspol, they put us in a pit, and then in another stable where we stayed 3 weeks without food, the soldiers brought us their portion. One came from the military unit and told us to leave the station because a train was waiting for us. When we arrived in Alexandria, we each drove to our homes and stayed here until now ". Just hearing this made me shiver, imagine living in such hell. They are all heroes in my

eyes!!

In conclusion, one of the main reasons why this gypsy holocaust began was the color of the skin. And yet 79 years after their death, skin color is still a problem. The phenomenon of bullying among gypsies has increased, including me being bullied for this reason. So I ask you, aren’t we human? What are you, the ones who hate us for this reason? I'm telling you, nothing special." Ionela Nina Lincan, student of the Theoretical High School "Constantin Noica", Alexandria.

Bibliography: Ancel Jean, Contributions to the History of Romania. The Jewish Problem 1933-1944, vol. I, Bucharest, 2001, part II Catalin Zamfir, E. Zamfir, Gypsies between ignorance and concern, Alta Publishing House, 1993 Cornelia Bodea, 1848 in Romanian. A history in data and testimonies, Scientific and Encyclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1982