8 April marks International Roma Day, when Roma people around Europe celebrate their culture and heritage. However, it is often a day tinged with sadness, as the Roma are by some margin, the most persecuted people in Europe today. It is now about 1 000 years since the Roma came out of the Punjabi region of India and started their long trek westwards to Europe. In those years the Roma have had to face terrible discrimination and persecution, culminating in the hundreds of thousands of innocent Roma lives lost in the Holocaust, or as some Roma call it, the Porajmos, in the 1930s and 1940s.
So what is life like for the Roma in Europe today?
It was reported on 20 March that a terrible fire had destroyed eight homes in the Romani settlement in the Slovakian town of Veľký Šariš) on the night of Wednesday, 19 March and early Thursday 20 Marsch. It was noted that the fire had claimed five lives, including four young children. The fire destroyed eight homes, in the Romani settlement having broken out at 10.20.
Many communities across the world have been devastated by fire, but one thing links many of them; as we saw in this country with the Grenfell Fire in 2017, the poor and the marginalised are often more vulnerable to the threat of fire than other communities. And no group in Europe is more marginalised than the Roma.
Fire in Slovakia
It is therefore not surprising that Jozef Stojka, chair of the Union of Vlax Roma (Unie olašských Romů) in the Czech Republic, on 21 March called on Romani people in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and across the European Union to light candles in memory of the victims. Tewllingly Stojka also argued that the tragedy had exposed the long-standing crisis in Slovakia’s approach toward its marginalized Romani communities.
It was noted that, “in his appeal, Stojka criticized, among other things, the way Slovakia and its government handle European Union funds intended to improve the living conditions of the Roma. He points out that despite the millions of euros flowing into the country from Brussels, thousands of Romani families live in conditions that are dangerous.”
Stojka wrote: “Let’s finally stand up against a system that allows Romani children to grow up in poverty, cold and hunger. Let’s light candles and send photos of them out to the whole world. Let everyone see what’s happening.”
Neo-Nazis in Berlin
Meanwhile, the rise of right-wing populism in Europe goes on unabated. It was reported in March that Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) had noted that a neo-Nazi demonstration in Berlin, Germany on Saturday, on 22 March had ended early for security reasons. The demonstration was said to be was the largest gathering of neo-Nazis in Berlin in recent months causing around 1,500 police officers to be deployed on the scene throughout the day.
The demonstration was held in the Friedrichshain district of Berlin, under the slogan “For law and order – against left-wing extremism and politically motivated violence,” and organisers had predicted that there would be 1,200 participants. In the event, about 850 people eventually showed up for it, according to the police.
In all it was reported that more than ten different counter-protests had been held against the march, which were attended by about 2,000 people in total., The neo-Nazis were only able to proceed for 200 metres, because the counter-demonstrators had blocked the march route.
Furthermore, it was reported that, “police detained around 40 people, most of them on the right-wing extremist side. They were suspected of violating laws on the possession of explosives, fireworks, weapons and other prohibited items. One woman publicly displayed the symbols of a banned organization and one man gave the Nazi salute in view of the police, reports Berliner Zeitung. After the demonstration ended, the police were tasked with ensuring its participants left Berlin without causing any problems”.
It may be reassuring that there were more than twice as many counter-demonstrated as there were neo-Nazis and that the march was blocked. However, let us be clear here; even just a few years ago the idea that neo-Nazis could demonstrate openly in Germany’s capital city would have seemed absurd. It would also have seemed absurd that a far-right party, in the guise of Alternative für Deutschland, would be the official opposition in Germany, a country still haunted by its Nazi past. Yet here we are in April 2025. And many groups across Europe are feeling vulnerable as the chill winds of far-right populism begin to blow across the continent again and no group is more vulnerable than the Roma, the most persecuted minority in Europe.
A long story
This is in many ways, such a long story. The Roma emerged out of the Punjabi region in India about 1 000 years ago, for reasons that are still not entirely clear. They travelled westwards to Europe in fairly small groups and when they got to Europe, through Turkey, they found that they were late to the party. While there weren’t the modern nation states in Europe that we can see today, different ethnic groups had largely taken over huge tracts of land in Europe. There had been a wave of immigrations from out of the East, starting with the Celts, then groups such as the Franks, the Angles and Saxons and the Germanic peoples, with the Slavs pushing everybody from behind.
The Roma turned up last and like the diaspora Jews, found themselves stateless in potentially hostile lands. The Roma also tended to arrive in relatively small groups and so were always seen as outsiders in somebody else’s land. At first the Roma were actually prized, especially for their metalwork skills and many Roma became expert blacksmiths, the car mechanics of the day, keeping Europe moving.
However, they were seen as different. They had a different culture, and in a society as superstitious as Medieval Europe, it was only a matter of time before the Roma, like the Jews would become scapegoats. So it was that the Roma began to be blamed if there was a bad harvest and people went hungry or any other of numerous natural or social disasters took place. In many countries they were treated as second-class citizens and in Romania were slaves for many decades.
The terrible persecution of the Roma culminated in the Holocaust or the Porajmos as some Roma call it. It is often forgotten that the Nuremberg Laws, which discriminated so seriously against the Jews in Germany also applied to the Roma. Similarly, it isn’t always remembered that while anti-Jewish signs came down for a few weeks in the summer of 1936, as Berlin hosted the Olympics, the Roma were rounded up off the streets of Germany and put in camps.
By then the stage was set for the wholesale extermination of Roma wherever the Nazis found them, especially as they took more and more land after the invasion of Poland on 1 September. Nobody knows how exactly Roma were murdered in cold blood, as the Nazis didn’t bother to count the number of Roma they killed, unlike their very precise counting of the Jews they murdered, but it is thought to be between 500 000 and about 1.5 million.
The Roma were also the last group to gain any compensation after the war from Germany, having to wait until the 1980’s before anything was forthcoming, while persecution has carried on throughout the post-war era. From 1996 onwards, Roma women …were unlawfully sterilized by the Czechoslovak and subsequently Czech authorities”. It was only in 2012 that the appalling practice was ended and only in 2021 that some of the women involved were given any compensation fore their suffering and trauma.
The situation today
On a hot August day in 2014, Saturday 2 August to be precise, I was privileged to be at the ceremony at Auschwitz-Birkenau to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the murder of the last Roma and Sinti in Auschwitz in 1944. There were many fine speeches from political and other leaders, saying how terrible the crime committed by the Nazis had been and how it must not happen again. Yet even back then, in many respects, the Porajmos or Holocaust against the Roma was the Holocaust that had never quite ended.
Now in 2025, the situation looks even more perilous for the millions of Roma spread out across Europe. The rise of far-right populism has again led to the normalisation of views and opinions which are deeply harmful for minority groups. And no group in Europe is more vulnerable than the Roma.
Please remember the Roma on 8 April and as we go forward, help to stand up to any attempts to dehumanise and scapegoat them.
