On May 16th, 1944 something extraordinary happened. An uprising at Auschwitz which sent the armed Nazi soldiers running away to safety.

On one hand, the uprising was successful. Nobody was killed in the gas chambers that night. And the order was for all 6,000 Roma and Sinti what they referred to as the “Gypsy Family section” to be “liquidated” in order to clear space for a new transport of prisoners.

On the other hand, the success was temporary —because the Nazis found another way to liquidate the Roma and Sinti prisoners. It took almost 3 months and a lot of manoeuvring until there were only children, sick, and elderly people left in the “Gypsy Family Section” for the Nazis to feel safe enough to complete their massacre. Though even then, the Roma and Sinti did not go out without a fight.

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To know what is coming

On the evening of May 16th, over 50 armed SS soldiers arrived in lorries at the designated Romani section in Auschwitz-Birkenau, following orders to transport the 6,000+ people inside to the gas chambers. They ordered the prisoners out, but nobody stepped out.

The prisoners knew what awaited them. Some records indicate that earlier, they had been warned by a Polish clerk working at the camp. The order trickled down to the block leaders.

But even before that, they knew. Even if they didn’t know when, they knew what.

At some point in the spring of 1944, all Russian Roma were dragged out of the “Gypsy Family Camp” and the other Roma were told it was due to a smallpox infection. A quarantine, to protect the others from being infected.

On May 16th, this was the plan for the remaining Roma.

But this time, they knew.

Facing certain death

After months of living in horrific conditions, enduring starvation, disease, and forced labor, the Roma knew full well that the odds were not in their favour. They were malnourished prisoners about to face off armed soldiers.

But what else could they do? Just walk over to the gas chamber?

Never.

Here in the Sofia Romani communities, we see this exact same spirit when someone points a gun at a Roma. They don’t run, knowing full well you can’t outrun a bullet, they step forward with anger and fire. They face it, they are ready to fight. In this video we posted some time ago, you see a Roma man shouting “Come on! Shoot!” at a police officer who threatens him and his family with a gun.

Reading about the Roma’s reaction at Auschwitz when they learned they’ll be rounded up and “liquidated”, doesn’t surprise us at all. It is the only thing they could have done: resist.

The prisoners broke into an equipment warehouse and armed themselves with hammers, pickaxes and shovels. They took apart the wooden sections of the bunks they slept on and used the wood to make weapons. They took rocks, too. They went inside the barracks and barricaded themselves.

And then they waited.

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Lights at Auschwitz-Birkenau

In the evening of May 16th, 50+ SS soldiers arrived at the “Gypsy Family Camp” in trucks, armed with rifles and guns, and accompanied by German shepherds. They shouted orders at the Roma and Sinti prisoners — to get out.

Nobody stepped out.

The SS soldiers grew angry. SS-Obersturmführer Johann Schwarzhuber went from barrack to barrack and banged on the doors.

It was clear that the Roma were resisting and all the other prisoners were witnessing it.

So what did the armed, trained, guarded-by-dogs Nazi soldiers do?

They turned around, got into their trucks, and drove off.

The Romani prisoners were ready for a fight. The SS soldiers were not.

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The liquidation of the “Gypsy Camp”

The Nazis got what they wanted, eventually. On the evening of August 2, almost three months later, they arrived again in trucks, carrying guns and rifles, surrounded by German shepherds. This time, they succeeded in dragging the Roma to the gas chambers.

But why did they take almost 3 months?

Because first, they carefully picked out about 1,500 strong and able-bodied men and sent them to labor camps outside Auschwitz. Then they continued brutalising the remaining prisoners, sent children to Dr. Mengele for his experiments, and let people succumb to disease and starvation. On August 1, again, about 1,400 young men were picked out and transferred out to labor camps.

On August 2, there were less than half Roma at the “Gypsy Family Camp” than there were on May 16th. Less than 3,000. All of them women, children, elderly and sick people.

Safe enough for the SS soldiers.

Still, this time they were not 50 — they were a few hundred.

But even with all this preparation, the SS found no lambs to drag to the slaughterhouse.

May 16th is commemorated as Romani resistance day, marking the first, the successful uprising.

August 2nd is commemorated as Romani Holocaust Remembrance Day, because this is when the “Gypsy Camp” was finally, to use the Nazi term, “liquidated.”

But August 2nd was also Resistance Day. The Roma were fewer and weaker than on May 16th. But they still barricaded themselves. They still fought back. They still gave the Nazis hell and made them struggle and fight the entire night.

So on both May 16th and August 2nd, let’s remember the Romani fire which made “the whole of Birkenau light up” even in the face of cruel, genocidal death.

The social housing buildings in Zaharna Fabrika, Sofia, are protected as cultural heritage. They were originally built as residential buildings for factory workers and the entire area has a distinct architectural vibe. On the outside, these houses are beautiful. Many movies have been filmed here: in fact, quite a few times we discovered, when watching a random movie, that the background is in fact Zaharna Fabrika - the place the two of us met and fell in love, the place that has housed so much joy and tragedy for Pepi’s tribe.

While the houses are stunning on the outside, the inside story is very different. Holes in the walls and roofs, frequent power cuts, no place to shower, frequent interruptions in the water supply, mold-infested rooms. After the demolition of dozens of Romani homes in 2017, the families were placed in these houses and …

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On April 15, 2025, five days before Easter, the third and final demolition wave descended upon our Romani quarter. The protocol was the same as the demolitions before: at 5:00 am the mayor arrived with gendarmerie, a bulldozer, and despite the please of the families, razed their homes to the ground.

More than two weeks later, this situation is still brewing. The majority of the 180+ people are left homeless, some sleeping with relatives, others among the ruins of their houses. In future articles, we will tell you about this more. The violation of the European Court for Human Rights’ order to postpone the demolition until housing is found. The refusal of the municipality to give the families tents donated by the Red Cross, resulting in people sleeping under the open sky through heavy rain. The massive division in our society, some standing up to defend and support…

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We don’t know when our Romani quarter was born. There’s no paperwork for it - which is part of the reason why everyone around feels it has no right to exist.

But if you ask the Roma, they’ll say the quarter - also called mahala - has existed for “90 years” or “a century.”

And they’ll add, “My mother was born here and died here. My grandmother and grandfather - they were born here. And died here.”

They don’t mean this symbolically. Up until very recently, women in the mahala gave birth there, in the barracks, or under the open sky, with fe…

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“The wolf has to eat,” is a common saying at Pepi’s job, at least among the Roma street cleaners. It means, put very simply, that money never flows down to the workers. Instead, it stays with the owner, Rumen Gaytanski.

Garbage disposal and street cleaning of our city Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) used to be monopolized by Gaytanski in the 1990s into the early 2000s. Every article about him says his nickname is “The Wolf” because one of his two companies was named “Wolf 96.” But the nickname is more than earned.

“He used to be very cruel then,” Pepi said. Martina wondered how much crueler he could have been compared to now. “I didn’t work for him then. But some coworkers still talk about how awful he was. He has mellowed down now.”

In 2005-2007, Boyko Borisov - who would later become the longest-reigning prime minister of our country until he was pushed out by anti-corruption protests - used the Wolf as on…

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Over a thousand years ago, scores of people left Ancient India and haven’t felt at home since.

They traveled through Asia, the Middle East, Byzantium, the Balkans, and Europe. As George Borrow wrote in his 1841 book The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain,

“There is scarcely a place of the habitable world where they are not to be found; their tents are alike pitched on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalayan hills, and their language is heard at Moscow and Madrid, in the streets of London and Stamboul.”

And everywhere, they became scapegoats.

The reviled Gypsies

The Romani people — also known as Gypsies in the Western world — have not been able to fit in for over a millennium.

The earliest historical accounts of their arrival in Europe sound a lot like the modern-day stereotypes against them: Thieves. Liars. Given every opportunity to participate in society and they reject it.

For centuries, the Roman…

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In early December 2022, our daughter had just turned two months old. She was becoming more alert and playful. Every time she saw our faces, she melted into a huge, happy smile.

It was surreal for us, having a newborn, to watch the scandal that hit national news in December 2022.

The swapped babies

A woman, who we know little about except that she’s white and middle-class, gave birth with a C-section on September 13th, 2022 in one of Bulgaria’s most popular maternity hospitals Sheynovo. Several days later, she returned home with a daughter.

As the weeks flew by, she noticed that her baby didn’t look like her older child or anyone else in the family - she had darker skin. And then one day, as she was sorting through hospital documents, she checked the two bracelets.

Immediately after birth, two conjoined plastic bracelets with identical numbers are broken apart …

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When Natasa Botosova was giving birth, they handed her “a blank paper to sign.”

“I was in a lot of pain so I did what they asked. After that I was anaesthetised and then they sterilised me. I only found out what had happened because afterwards there was a scar on my abdomen.”

Jirina Dzurkova had an ectopic pregnancy. At the hospital, she was told that she has to undergo urgent surgery. Sometime later, at a regular checkup with her doctor, he took a look at her medical file and said,

“I see you have been sterilized.”

Elena Gorolová was 21 when she was giving birth to her second son.

“My first child was delivered by C-section and the doctor told me I would need another one. Nobody said anything about sterilization.”

And yet, after she woke up from the C-section she was told by the doctor that she had also been sterilized.

All these cases, and many more like them, took place a few decades ago in the Czech Republic.

The question is not whether it happened. We know it did. The question is, does it continue to happen?

To answer this, first let’s look at what do these women — who were all sterilized against their will — have in common.

Hello there, racism. So we meet again.

Forced sterilization started taking place in the 1970s, back in what used to be Czechoslovakia. Communism fell, the country split in two, but the sterilizations continued to happen.

Why?

Because the true reason they happened — namely, gnawing hatred — doesn’t live and die by political regimes. Instead, it underpins and outlives them.

In the 1970s, Czechoslovakia embraced eugenics just like neighboring Germany had 40 years earlier. The country believed that its bright future can only be guaranteed by the beautiful, white, ethnical Czechoslovakians — and anyone else was an impediment and a parasite.

So, the government launched a program targeting the largest minority in the country — the Roma population.

Romani women were approached by social workers and offered money in exchange for undergoing sterilization. They were told the procedure only lasts “for five years” and that all the other women in the community have done it. The ones who declined were threatened that their children would be taken away. Or that their husbands would lose their jobs.

Roma women were most frequently targeted in the vulnerable moment just before or during birth. While in a state of pain or confusion, under influence of medication, or under threat of health complications, they were forced to sign papers — consenting, without their knowledge, to be sterilized. Doctors and nurses didn’t even bother doing that much with many women but simply went ahead with the procedure and afterward either informed the mother or left her to find out on her own.

This campaign was just one piece of a larger anti-Roma puzzle. There was “a wider social narrative to “discriminate, seclude and eradicate” the Roma population” in Czechoslovakia that also poisoned education, the job market, and housing for the Romani.

But Czechoslovakia was not unique in this endeavor.

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A picture speaks a thousand words. And a movie, even more.

In September, 2022, Pepi co-created an 11-minute short movie about the history of his Roma quarter (mahala) and the demolition of its houses.

This was done with the invaluable initiative and skills of our friends from ATD Fourth World: an international non-profit that does amazing work with communities living in poverty.

In 2020, Martina joined an ATD group of volunteers organizing games and activities for children. This is how she met our tribe and, soon after, Pepi.

Walking into a Romani mahala is a complicated thing. Not because someone will rob you or attack you (as the stereotype goes,) but because the Romani are mistrustful of outsiders. They will welcome you, most likely offer you a coffee, chat with you, but if you had any agenda, best forget it. For a group of people to walk into a Roma mahala and shoot a movie, especially where someone is sharing history, is an extremely rare thing.

This movie was only possible because of the years of friendship between the ATD team and the Roma tribe, and Pepi’s willingness to talk to “outsiders” and share the story of the mahala, how it was the “center of everything” where Romani and Bulgarians alike gathered to play sports and cards before our government forced further segregation, what did the demolition of houses look and feel like, and some of Pepi’s personal story, too.

A special shout-out to two dear friends:

Simeon Brand, a life-long activist, who is conducting the interview of Pepi in the movie.

Maria Dacheva, a super talented film-maker, educator, and activist, who is behind the camera.

We are sharing the full 11-minute movie with our paid subscribers but are also publishing several short snippets from it on our Instagram Page.

We hope you enjoy meeting Pepi and having him take you on a short walk full of stories.

When the wandering Romani entered the Kingdom of Bohemia in the 15th century, they weren’t chased away like most everywhere else. They were given a letter of protection, issued directly by the Holy Roman Emperor and Czech King, Zikmund.

The Romani kept this letter as they continued to travel into France, which is how and where they started being called “Bohemian.”

It’s as simple as that. At least the beginning of the story is.

What does boho mean?

The Kingdom of Bohemia had its own rich culture, which is still alive to this day within the Czech Republic. However, when we say “Bohemian” or “Boho” we don’t think of the historic Bohemian or Czech style.

The “Bohemian” label has stuck since the 15th century as a descriptor for some of the most prominent qualities of Roma culture: free-spiritedness, nomadism, artistic talent, music, rich colors. When the Romani entered France, they were met with the same hostility and racism as everywhere else in Europe. For several hundred years, they were pe…

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In September 1993, something very ordinary happened in the rural Transylvanian village of Haderani. A fight erupted between two “Gypsy brothers” and a young “local man” and his father. The young local man was stabbed and died.

So far, this is a story of tragedy and violence. What happened afterward — that is the ordinary part.

“In retaliation, other Romanians clubbed the Gypsy boys to death with pitchforks and shovels. A third Gypsy was “carbonized at home” (as the English-language Romanian reports described it).

“A group of villagers then went on to torch fourteen Gypsy houses and to damage thirteen others, and that night the total of some 175 Gypsies, whose families had lived there for seventy years, were hounded out of town.”

In her book Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey, Isabel Fonseca goes on to describe her visit to Haderani one year after these events. Had any justice been carried out in the past months?

If you ask the locals — whic…

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Why are the Roma so hated across countries and continents? Why, for an entire millennium, has the “civilized world” had such deep and visceral disdain for them?

Is it their darker skin? Yes, racism plays a role, but this is not the whole story. Is it because a vast majority live in poverty and mainstream culture hates poor people? Yes, but not only. Is it because they - let’s insert a few common stereotypes - are “thieves,” “tricksters,” “liars,” “lazy”? Yes, people believe all this about them even when faced with evidence against it. But this is not the real reason for the hatred. These are excuses, ready-to-go shallow statements that vocalize the feeling but not what truly evokes it.

No, the real reason is deeper.

The Roma arrived in the Balkans and Europe at a time in history when the entire continent had calcified around Christianity and its dogmas.

Medieval Europe was a brutal place. The connection with nature was sapped. The connection with divinity was sapped. The connection to one’s instincts - sapped. In its place came stern men who spoke on behalf of a stern God. Everything that deviated was punished. Everyone had to know their place.

If the Roma had landed on one of Saturn’s Moons, they would have found a friendlier environment.

What makes the Roma so radically different?

Since the Middle Ages, to this day, the Roma have been called “freedom-loving” by outsiders. The “love for freedom” that outsiders see can be taken as a good thing. “I have a Gypsy soul” or “I have a Gypsy heart” is meant to proclaim travel lust, intensity of feeling, and authenticity. But mostly, the Roma are despised for their “love for freedom.” They’re described as unreliable, lazy, workshy, living day-to-day with no thought of tomorrow, as parasites on society… the list is endless.

The thing is, those who describe the Roma as “freedom-loving” are betraying a truth about themselves. The lack of freedom in their lives, bodies, and souls. And it all can be traced back to the Middle Ages.

The Roma arrived in Europe with their own faith. Had it been any type of worship of a single male God, they would have still faced racism and discrimination but not the stubborn, centuries-long, visceral hatred that has not lost its intensity to this day.

But they worshipped a Goddess.

The Roma have never believed in a punishing, angry God who tells you who is superior to whom and to blindly follow authority. Their faith, similar to many pagan traditions and ancient faiths where the Goddesses had a place in people’s consciousness, the Roma believe in their own agency, intuitions, and wisdom. Their connection to the divine is direct, without intermediaries who claim to speak on behalf of God.

In Medieval Europe, all of this was labeled with the simple “Devil worship.” In his article, historian Jhanvi Pinara describes a small bit of what the Europeans did: “There was so much enmity against the Romas that strict laws were passed that they’d have to eat in the open as they were accused of killing children and eating them. Some people would come and throw over the stove and the food which they cooked because they thought the Romas eat their children.” This was only the tip of the iceberg and the hatred only grew stronger and stronger. Laws were passed that encouraged people to kill Romani, to take their children, and to tear up families and communities. In 16th century Scotland, it was legal to hang, brand, drown, cut off the ears of Romani simply for the reason that they were Romani. In the 18th century, Holy Emperor Joseph I issued an edict that called for all adult male Romani to be hanged without trial, and for Romani women and young males to be flogged and banished. The women and younger boys had their right ears sliced off in the Kingdom of Bohemia and were then dragged to Moravia for the removal of their left ears.

To a mind split in half between “this is good” and “this is evil”, people either act the way they “should” or they’re following Satan. And once they follow Satan, there’s never enough punishment.

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The Hindu Goddess in a Christian temple

There are many Black Madonnas (statues of women with dark skin) in Christian churches, temples, and cathedrals across Europe. While the Church doesn’t like talking about them much, their origin and symbolism have fascinated curios minds and attracted believers from all over the world.

You can read more about this phenomenon and its symbolism in Martina Petkova’s piece “The Mystery of the Black Madonna.”

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One of these Black Madonna’s is Saint Kali, or Kali Sara / Sara-el-Kali/ Sara la Kali, which translates to “Sara the Black One” from Romanes. The statue is one among three reputed statues in an ancient temple in the Southern French village Les Saintes Maries de la Mer. Sara Kali is the only “dark” statue. She’s also the only one who is not officially a saint. The “Saint Sara” title has been granted by the people and pilgrims, not by the Church. The other two (white) statues represent Mary Jacobé and Mary Salomé. According to legend, the two Maries arrived in the town together with a third Mary: the notorious Mary Magdalene. They all left Palestine after the death of Jesus and sailed to the southern shores of France. The name of the village - Mary Jacobé, Mary Salomé - comes from their names. In time, Mary Magdalene was erased from the lore and now the legends and statues talk only about the two Maries. However, there is a fourth figure in this story: Sara.

Who was she? Some theories say she was an Egyptian servant who traveled with the Maries from Palestine. The Roma were mistaken for Egyptians in the early times of their arrival (which originated the exonym “Gypsy”) so there is a tangenial link there even though the Romani as a group left India centuries after the Maries sailed to France.

According to one legend, Sara supported the Maries through begging while they were busy teaching Christianity to the local population. Another legend says Sara saved the Maries by spreading her cloak while they were caught in a storm in the sea while they were still traveling.

And yet another legend says Sara was not a servant but a Roma Queen who was already living in Southern France and welcomed the Maries (and Christianity) upon their arrival.

Regardless of what the legends say, Kali Sara is a Romani saint. A Romani Queen. For centuries, and to this day, Romani pilgrims from all over the world have been traveling every year to honor the temple and the statue as their Queen, Saint, and Protectress.

But she was never a saint or a queen.

She is a Goddess, hiding in plain sight.

When the Roma arrived in Europe, the statue of Sara was already in the French temple. They didn’t create it.

They were being persecuted, brutalized, and murdered for their “devil worship” and then they saw the “Devil” herself, diguised as a humble Christian saint. So they claimed her.

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The trickery of the Goddess and the Roma

It might sound simplistic to say that the big difference and reason for centuries of hatred boil down to a God-versus-Goddess faith system.

Until you think about what each faith system brings into consciousness. What cultures it creates.

In the cultures built around a one-dimensional God, we have ambitious civilizations, phallic skyscrapers, and a pathological need to beat your own chest like King Kong. “I’m the best,” “My race is superior,” “My country and traditions are better.” And all this leads to the inevitable “Therefore, I’m entitled to more.” There’s scarcity in this culture. The constant anxiety that you need to take more and push more or you’ll die.

Colonialism exists in the name of this God. Class divides, serfdom, slavery exist in the name of this God.

Cultures built around a Goddess, even a sometimes-angry Goddess like Kali, are not interested in hierarchies, authorities, taking other people’s territories. And they do not care about prestige and beating your own chest.

The Romani Goddess doesn’t mind hiding under the shrouds of a humble servant to two Christian saints. She knows she’s still a Goddess. And the Roma know she’s still a Goddess.

Romani culture is all about the internal experience. The Roma don’t toot their own horn, don’t brag about their ancient history, or their clan, or their traditions.

In fact, the Roma often deliberately downplay their intellect and their skills. When dealing with outsiders, reporters, institutions, police, and anyone they consider hostile, they often act confused, like they don’t understand, they deliberately give vague answers, and they sometimes even play up their accent when talking in the native language of the country. All of this is a clever survival tactic that, to the Roma, is like theatre play on the surface. And underneath is their unshakable dignity: something that, for a thousand years, outsiders have tried and failed to take away.

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Who do the Roma honor today?

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In the 1970s, the Roma adopted an official flag, representing the heavens, the earth, and a 16-spoked mandala. They don’t believe God belongs to them or that the land belongs to them. However, they do feel that they belong to the Sky and the Earth, as equals to any other living being.

The Sky and the earth and us

Flags are not just a symbol of national identity. Throughout history, they have been used to mark territory. You set foot on a piece of land, you pitch a flag, and now this piece of land is yours. The next person who sets foot there is now an invader.

When the Roma traveled as Nomads throughout West Asia, the Balkans, and Europe, the lands were already carved out and claimed. The Roma would often set up temporary camps, which usually meant hostile visits by the local police, before they set out on the road again; either by force or by their own free will. The Roma were usually seen as foreign, “exotic,” unpredictable, loud, and dangerous by the settled communities they brushed against.

But were they invaders?

They never tried to claim any land as their own. They never attempted to carve out their own territory. They never, ever attempted to chase anyone out of their home. They did sometimes steal, but only in extreme situations and only when they believed they didn’t cause permanent harm. They would steal a couple of chickens from farms that had many chickens, where the theft would be seen as a great annoyance but not as a verdict of starvation. They would let their horses graze on other people’s land; knowing that it is the earth itself that would take care of the grass growing again. They would take things that are easily restored, like picking a few apples from a tree. But they would never cut the tree.

British Roma Patrick Jasper Lee wrote a book about Romani culture and titled it: “We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Folk Tradition and Culture.” What better way to describe our relationship with Mother Earth? We borrow. We do not own.

A saying, often attributed as a Native American proverb, goes: “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”

It is easy to imagine that it is a profound drive in human nature to claim things as “my own” and try to possess them. The history of claiming land and fighting over it (and the resources it gives) is centuries long. But the history of humankind roaming the lands of continents is much, much longer. The Roma, like many indigenous cultures, have retained the wisdom from these times and the connection with the land and all living beings. No exploitation and frantic gripping, but taking only what can be easily restored; and giving back.

This is why the symbolism of the sky and earth in the Romani flag is so powerful. They do not claim the sky and earth as their possessions, but as their Gods, their mother and father, that from which they come, to which they will return, to which they belong.

To this day, in Romani culture, weddings take place under the open sky. There are no priests in a Romani wedding, no officiants who proclaim the bride and groom to now be “a husband and wife.” The marriage is made official by virtue of it being witnessed by the tribe, the sky, and the earth.

In her book, “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey,” Isabel Fonseca recounts a conversation with a Romani woman from a Nomadic tribe.

To our glorious civilizations’ great annoyance, the Roma don’t take borders very seriously. They see them as big obstacles when traveling, as “scars on the Earth” as a Romani proverb goes, as artificial, unnatural structures. But when they cross, they do it peacefully. Their goal has always been to travel, trade, practice their crafts, to meet up with related clans and tribes. And then to move on.

How many wars have been waged in the name of our flags?

The Roma, whose flag links them to the entire planet, have never waged a single war in their history.

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The 16-spoked wheel

The layers of the 16-spoked mandala on the Romani flag are several. It symbolizes, most obviously, a caravan wheel.

This is not only a reference to the Nomadic lifestyle of the Roma, but also to their relationship to the earth. It reinforces the sentiment that they are here not to claim the land but to travel it.

In his book, “The Gypsies,” Jan Yoors writes about his impressions when he first joined a Nomadic Romani tribe as a 12-year-old boy.

The Roma recognize a simple truth that, in mainstream society, we still struggle to accept and re-learn. Life is not a permanent fixture but a flowing river. Change is the only constant. Knowing how to let go is how you truly love and cherish. And gripping things only suffocates them.

The wheel is also a callback to India, the motherland of the Roma. In Sanskrit (from which the Romanes language originates,) the 16-spoked wheel was called “chakra”, meaning “destiny.” The symbolism of the wheel in India is the everlasting cycle of death and rebirth, of constant renewal: something that is deeply infused in Romani culture, touching its relationship with material possessions, animals, and loved ones.

The red color of the wheel was chosen to represent blood, commemorating the Roma lives taken during the Holocaust.

It also represents fire, a staple of Nomadism. Stopping at a camping spot, tending a fire, cooking together, sitting down to eat, singing and dancing: this true happiness. For the Roma, this has been what life is all about, for the last thousand years to this very day: not hoarding, taking, claiming, or owning; but cherishing.

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On November 19, 2009, Pepi and two of his brothers - Jerry and Sadik, walked into one of the many old, abandoned buildings once part of a modern factory complex developed by a Belgian company just outside the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. These buildings gave the name to the neighborhood that gradually grew around them as Sofia expanded over the next century: Zaharna Fabrika, translating to “Sugar Factory.” The factory has long stopped working but the cultural significance and the unique and captivating architecture have earned these buildings protection as “cultural heritage.”

Within walking distance of this cultural monument is one of the largest Roma ghettos in Sofia - also in existence for over a century. The ghetto, originally a smaller community, that eventually expanded to over 3,000 people, was born as most Roma ghettos are born - on the…

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In 2016, two cars crossed paths on a central road of the Bulgarian town Radnevo. A group of four men emerged from one car, a group of three men emerged from the other. They locked into a physical fight. The group of four severely beat up the group of three. Lungs were punctured, skulls were fractured.

Once ambulances and authorities got involved, it became clear that the group of four were Roma and the group of three were white Bulgarians. The Roma were rushed to jail, the Bulgarians to the hospital.

But this was far from over. News of this case spread like a forest fire across the country.

The citizens of Radnevo immediately rallied together and scheduled a protest at the doors of the Roma community. Policemen were dispatched to prevent anyone from getting into the neighborhood. Was that necessary? Yes. There is a cen…

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Hitler had his eyes set on the “Jewish Problem” but that was far from the only “problem” he tackled via mass murder. He was, truth be told, in the grips of the Superiority Problem — where you want to feel superior to everyone else and work hard to figure out what specifically makes everyone else inferior to you.

Germany had, for decades if not centuries, nurtured its hostility towards the Jewish population, so when Hitler came into power they became the first and most obvious target.

Disabled people were an immediate clash with the robotized ideal of the Aryan Übermensch — so off they went, too. Gay people, who to this day are still being vilified as “deviants,” didn’t enjoy much acceptance under the Nazi regime either.

Hitler’s big dreams were cut short but had they become a reality, he would have expanded further East and created Lebensraum (room for life, ironically) for his growing, hopeful Aryan race. And the people who lived East? A…

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In September 1993, something very ordinary happened in the rural Transylvanian village of Haderani. A fight erupted between two “Gypsy brothers” and a young “local man” and his father. The young local man was stabbed and died.

So far, this is a story of tragedy and violence. What happened afterward — that is the ordinary part.

“In retaliation, other Romanians clubbed the Gypsy boys to death with pitchforks and shovels. A third Gypsy was “carbonized at home” (as the English-language Romanian reports described it).

“A group of villagers then went on to torch fourteen Gypsy houses and to damage thirteen others, and that night the total of some 175 Gypsies, whose families had lived there for seventy years, were hounded out of town.”

In her book Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey, Isabel Fonseca goes on to describe her visit to Haderani one year after these events. Had any justice been carried out in the past months?

If you ask the locals — which Fonseca did — justice had been carried out on that September night, by torching and chasing away the Roma population. No official investigation followed. In fact, policemen were present during the attack on the Roma houses, guarding the attackers.

The Romani tried to return to what was left of their homes but the villagers kept chasing them away. One Roma woman was among many who told Fonseca she was still afraid for her life:

“They ring the church bells whenever they see one of us,” she said, “and we know what that means.”

A predictable story

One of the most reliable things you can find in European history is this kind of brutality against Romani communities. It is distinct with its sadistic, hungry cruelty, with the desire to punish to the point of complete annihilation.

The tidal wave of violence in Haderani was unleashed by the death of the young man but it had already been boiling and spilling over the edges— not just in this small village, but in the whole country and all neighboring countries.

Fonseca lists out several examples from the early 1990s in Bury Me Standing. Three houses burned in one village, “for no apparent reason,” by Hungarians and Romanians. Six houses destroyed and four Roma killed by Hungarians in another village. A few weeks later, 35 Romani houses were destroyed by Hungarians in the town of Turulung. A few weeks after that, Romani quarters were destroyed in two other towns. Fonseca writes, “in neither case did the attackers claim a motive or even a pretext.”

And two months after that, a coordinated and unprovoked attack was waged against the Roma community in Bucharest:

“An old Gypsy woman had a fatal heart attack after watching her children and grandchildren being dragged from their hiding places under beds and in cupboards and badly beaten.” — Bury Me Standing, Isabel Fonseca

One unusual thing about the Bucharest attack was that arrests were made. The attacked Romani people were “arrested and thrown into Bucharest’s Magurele military barracks, which was being used as a temporary prison.”

Fonseca wrote her book in the early 1990s and attributes the increasing violence against the Romani to the turbulent times after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Eastern Europeans needed a scapegoat, someone to blame for holding them back from the great promise of democracy.

The Romani were swiftly put in the role of scapegoats as has been the norm all over the world for the past ten centuries. People either brutalize them or watch others brutalize them.

Ask anyone. A Hungarian, a Bulgarian, a German, an Italian... Ask them in the 1990s, ask them in the Middle Ages, ask them today. You’ll get the same answer: the Romani are thieves, criminals, and deserve to be either chased far away or destroyed.

It’s not history yet

One day, we might look back on all the violence against the Romani with some sense of accountability and self-reflection.

But right now, we don’t have to look back. We can just look around.

I’m from Bulgaria, the country that shares the label “largest Romani minority” with Romania. I grew up right next to the biggest Roma neighborhood in the capital, Sofia. I was taught to keep my distance, watch my pockets, avoid eye contact.

At age 33, I’m yet to have a bad experience with a Roma person.

In the past year, I’ve been volunteering with a group that works with people in poverty. We go to one of the Roma communities in Sofia organize games for the children.

There are no church bells there. But you can hear the echoes of Haderani. The houses of over 30 Roma families were demolished by the mayor — at the insistence of the surrounding Bulgarian residents — and the families were crammed into what used to be an old Gestapo office building nearby.

They, alongside the rest of the Roma families who still haven’t lost their houses, are soon to be “evicted” by the authorities — but nobody knows where.

During one of our recent visits, it just so happened that an engagement ceremony between two Roma families was taking place out on the streets. Everyone was gathered, the adults dancing hand in hand to the ancient, fierce rhythm of a Roma orchestra, the children watching and playing around.

We wanted to stay and watch, even dance, but we were outsiders to this community after all. We said hello but decided not to intrude. As we walked past, one of the kids approached us and jokingly asked if we called the police. What a stab at the heart that was. To be seen as someone who would try to put an end to this celebration — while I was aching to join it. But it was deserved. My people have been cutting short Romani celebrations and Romani lives for decades.

We were making our way through the crowd but more and more children gathered around us and slowed us down. One little boy asked me to pick him up. I lifted him in the air, he wrapped his legs around my waist and pressed his cheek against mine. In giggles, we danced to the rhythm of the drums.

Then I let him go and we hugged goodbye.

As we walked away from the music, and from this community that everyone around was working so hard to erase, all I wanted was to turn back and stay.

For centuries, people across Europe and the world have persecuted the Romani, destroyed their homes, enslaved them, murdered them, chased them away, and called them thieves.

It was in a Roma neighborhood — the quintessential place of danger I was raised to avoid — where I saw a friend accidentally drop a bunch of coins and the children rushing to gather them and press them back in her hand.

We sure enjoy fearing the Romani — and punishing them for that. But if you want to meet the real thieves, you won’t find them inside a Roma house. They’re outside, trying to tear it down.

(originally published by Martina Petkova on Medium in March 2021)