I’ve heard horrifying stories involving Roma, but also Mexicans and black people. I’ve told those to other Roma, Mexicans, and black people. One of those group has described those are perfectly normal and in line with the values of the group; the other two were generally horrified.
The family house was entirely ransacked while my grand-mother was still in there (alone that night). They took everything, precious heirloom, her mother’s Resistance medal; she was woken up by them tearing apart the pipes off the wall. She begged them to not run with the heating pipes, otherwise she’d die of cold. They threw her into the staircase, where she broke her hip and a rib; she begged for help, but they wished her a long and tortuous death.
She stayed there until the morning, when my aunt found her, and we didn’t had any details until weeks later: as I alluded to, most of her friends had died because there were in a Resistance network with her mother and her. Giving water to the stereotypes that Hitler defended was something she could not accept to do. But the thing is: most people in her village met with the same fate that night or the one after, and had less qualms, so we put two-and-two.
I got myself beaten down at the ATM by a group of five; they stole my maximum cash-out, and when one of the group was caught, a 6’2” guy with muscular physique, he claimed that he was 12 and could not go on trial; he had no proof of this because he was a nomad and had a constitutional right not to show ID. He was released immediately, and went on to attack the waitress at the corner bar, at the same ATM. That made national news.
A couple weeks after that, I was at a TEDx event, and a Roma representative was defending their actions, wondering what kind of back-ward neo-nazi could imagine something so hateful as Roma stealing. They just had a “different perception of property, that’s all”. That stroke me as candid, so I wanted to tell him my stories, genuinely to explain: you talk to some Romas, but others… they are not like that.
You know, a version of: racists don’t like dealing with gang-bangers, you talk about Childish Gambino… We need to explain how the same childhood can lead to different path, try to pick the right one.
Nope. Not that guy. He openly said it was my fault that my grand’mother died (she’s alive, and fairly well for a 97 years, although she walks with a cane) and that I was wrong to let her alone (my grand’ mother hates my father, I have no idea why, and always insisted we never lived with her; she likes me, but I suspect that’s because I look like my late grand’father). I asked if he though it was normal to tear people’s house away, when their lives depended on basic comfort. He clearly responded that I had a narrow view of property, and that these guys were far more skilled than I was at recycling things.
That guy was not a fringe in the Roma community, but the highest level representative to the national government. Other people at TEDx described barbaric episodes, and he kept insisting that we wrong, showing open contempt for people who were still shocked by a loved-one being attacked, maimed, for precious heirloom stolen… He was repeatedly using “gadjo” as an insult. It was sickening.
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