After World War I, the Romani people in Czechoslovakia formed an ethnic community, living on the social periphery of the mainstream Czechoslovakian population. [1]
After World War I, the Romani people in Czechoslovakia formed an ethnic community, living on the social periphery of the mainstream Czechoslovakian population. [1]
The state always focused on the Romani population not as a distinct ethnic minority, but rather perceived it as a particularly anti-social and criminal group. [1] This attitude was reflected in the policy of collecting special police evidence—fingerprint collections of members of Romani groups (1925), and a law about wandering Romani (1927). [1]
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II, Romani were exterminated by Nazi mobile killing units and in camps such as Lety, Hodonín and Auschwitz. In the Czech areas of the country, 90% of native Romani were killed during the war; the Romani in modern-day Czech Republic are mostly post-war immigrants from Slovakia or Hungary and their descendants. [2]
The communist government of 1945–1989 attempted to integrate the Romani into the majority population through obligatory education and employment, and the formation of Romani organizations. Romani people were forced to resettle in small groups around the country, leaving them isolated. [3] Parts of the Romani population were also transferred from Slovakia into the country's Czech regions. This policy of the state was oriented toward assimilation of the Romani people. Many Romani people were rehoused in panelák housing estates, which subsequently fell into acute disrepair, such as the Chanov housing estate in Most, [4] and Luník IX in Košice. In 1958, Law No. 74, "On the permanent settlement of nomadic and semi-nomadic people"), forcibly limited the movements of those Romani (around 5–10%) who still travelled on a regular basis. [1] In the same year, the highest organ of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia passed a resolution, the aim of which was to be "the final assimilation of the Gypsy population". [3] The popular perception of Romani even before 1989 was of lazy, dirty criminals who abused social services and posed a significant threat to majority values. [3] The "Gypsy question" was considered a "problem of a socially-backward section of the population". [1] During this period, the governments actively supported sterilisation and abortion for Romani women and the policy was not repealed until 1991. [3]
Attempts to stop the growth of the Romani population were made, especially in Slovakia, where Romani women were offered financial incentives for sterilization. After 1989, some Romani women accused the state of "forced sterilizations" arguing that they were not properly informed of what "sterilization" meant. [5] According to Czech ombudsman Otakar Motejl, "at least 50 Romani women were unlawfully sterilized". [6] The Czech representative at the United Nations protested against the accusations, claiming that they were "false" and that Romani women "exaggerate in all cases". [7] A hospital in Vitkovice, Ostrava, apologised to a Romani woman who was sterilised after her second caesarean, but a request for a compensation of 1 million Czech crowns was rejected by the court. [8]
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The Romani, also spelled Romany or Rromani and colloquially known as the Roma, are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Romani originated in the Indian subcontinent, in particular the region of present-day Rajasthan. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed by historians to have occurred around 1000 CE. Their original name is from the Sanskrit word डोम, ḍoma and means a member of the Dom caste of travelling musicians and dancers. The Roma population moved west into the Ghaznavid Empire and later into the Byzantine Empire. The Roma are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are located in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Spain, and Turkey.
Demographic features of the population of the Czech Republic include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations.
The Romani Holocaust or the Romani genocide was the planned effort by Nazi Germany and its World War II allies and collaborators to commit ethnic cleansing and eventually genocide against European Roma and Sinti peoples during the Holocaust era.
The Sinti are a subgroup of Romani people. They are found mostly in Germany, France and Italy and Central Europe, numbering some 200,000 people. They were traditionally itinerant, but today only a small percentage of Sinti remain unsettled. In earlier times, they frequently lived on the outskirts of communities.
The Museum of Romani Culture is an institution dedicated to the history and culture of the Romani people (Gypsies). It is situated in Brno, Czech Republic.
Bohemian Romani or Bohemian Romany was a dialect of Romani formerly spoken by the Romani people of Bohemia, the western part of today's Czech Republic. It became extinct after World War II, due to the genocide of most of its speakers in extermination camps by Nazi Germany.
Lety concentration camp was a World War II internment camp for Romani people from Bohemia and Moravia during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. It was located in Lety.
The Romani people, also referred to as Roma, Sinti, or Kale, depending on the subgroup, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group that primarily lives in Europe. The Romani may have migrated from what is the modern Indian state of Rajasthan, migrating to the northwest around 250 BC. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed to have occurred beginning in about 500 AD. It has also been suggested that emigration from India may have taken place in the context of the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni. As these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire.
Anti-Romani sentiment is a form of bigotry which consists of hostility, prejudice, discrimination, racism and xenophobia which is specifically directed at Romani people. Non-Romani itinerant groups in Europe such as the Yenish, Irish and Highland Travellers are frequently given the name "gypsy" and as a result, they are frequently confused with the Romani people. As a result, sentiments which were originally directed at the Romani people are also directed at other traveler groups and they are frequently referred to as "antigypsy" sentiments.
Romani people are an ethnic minority in the Czech Republic, currently making up 2–3% of the population. Originally migrants from North Western India sometime between the 6th and 11th centuries, they have long had a presence in the region. Since the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Romani population have experienced considerable hardship, having been a main target of Nazi extermination programs during World War II, and the subject of forced relocation, sterilisation, and other radical social policies during the Communist era. In the successor state, the Czech Republic, challenges remain for the Romani population with respect to education and poverty, and there are frequent tensions with the white majority population over issues including crime and integration.
According to the last census from 2021, there were 67,179 persons counted as Romani people in Slovakia, or 1.23% of the population. However, the number of Roma is usually underreported, with estimates placing the Roma population at 7-11% of the population. Thus the actual number of Roma may be over half a million.
This article describes ethnic minorities in Czechoslovakia from 1918 until 1992.
K.H. and Others vs. Slovakia is the first in a series of cases before the European Court for Human Rights dealing with the subject of forced sterilisation of Romani people or Gypsy women from Slovakia. The case did not deal with sterilization directly but it concerned access to medical records of forcibly sterilized Romani women for the purpose of litigation of their rights.
The Chanov housing projects on the outskirts of Most in the Ústí nad Labem Region were built by the Czechoslovak Communist authorities in the late 1970s as a means of housing much of the Romani population that resided in the old royal city of Most. The city was demolished during the 1970s and 1980s to extract the brown coal deposits that lay underneath. The reconstruction of the city and the necessity to relocate the Romani population gave the Communist authorities an opportunity to attempt "to transform all inhabitants into productive and modern socialist citizens". The Communists believed that moving the Roma into modern housing would end behaviour that the Communists considered uncivilised, and resolve the "Gypsy problem".
Milena Hübschmannová (1933-2005) was Czech professor of Romani studies at Charles University of Prague. She was one of the leading experts on Romani society and culture, as well as Romani language. She founded the academic study program on the Roma at Charles University and actively opposed their assimilation into the greater culture. She wrote a Romani-Czech and Czech-Romani dictionary and collected many of the stories of the Roma, translating them for posterity. The program she founded was the first program worldwide to offer a degree program to undergraduates in Romani Studies.
Presidential primaries for the Czech Social Democratic Party were held between 22 October and 25 November 2002 in order to choose the party's candidate for the 2003 presidential election. Miloš Zeman received the highest number of votes. Other candidates were Jaroslav Bureš, Otakar Motejl and Otakar Potůček. Jakub S. Trojan was originally a 5th candidate.
Věra Sokolová is a Czech academic who specializes in gender studies and specifically focuses on identity policy and the construction of sexuality from a historical and social perspective, evaluating the power, structuring and defining of sexuality to transcend binary boundaries. She is the chair of the Department of Gender Studies at Charles University in Prague. She is the co-managing editor of Gender and Generation, along with Kateřina Kolářová.
Otakar Černý was a Czech sports journalist and television presenter.
On 19 June 2021, Stanislav Tomáš, a Romani man in Teplice, Czech Republic, died after several police officers pinned him to the ground and knelt on his neck for several minutes. The death was filmed and the video went viral, leading to comparisons with the murder of George Floyd in the United States and led to protests against antiziganism.