Terry Wrote:I heard that Romania is also full of Gypsies

Romania Disputed official census): 535,250
Other sources: up to 0.7–2.5 million

clearman Wrote:In Romania also the gypsy problem is very hot. Let see a short history about Roma people in this country.
The Romanians in Wallachia and Moldavia – alone in Europe – made the Gypsies their slaves, binding them to the soil. Torn from their nomadic way of life, the Gypsies were forced to put down roots on the land of their masters. Like the black slaves in America, free people were turned into workhorses – albeit rational ones. For centuries they could be bought and sold. Families were torn apart, children separated from their mothers, women from their men folk. Young women were regularly raped by their masters, and the so-called 'crow-scum' was the target of widespread contempt and discrimination. One voivode, or provincial governor, would have them climb trees then shoot them down with arrows. Hunting crows, he called it. Tied to localities and kept like animals, the Gypsies in the Romanian principalities multiplied faster than anywhere else in Europe. Forced to become sedentary and till the soil, the Gypsies forgot their traditional occupations. They were now no longer boiler makers, goldsmiths, minstrels, bear trainers, silversmiths, etc. Like all slaves they became lazy, indolent farm laborers. They became cowardly, garrulous, drunken and quarrelsome, filled with vice and infirmity. This is the eternal lot of all slaves throughout the world. The hot-blooded youths rebelled against this state of things, stealing horses, robbing, counterfeiting, raping and murdering. The young Romanian serfs acted no differently: they joined the Hajduci and became highwaymen.
In the wake of 1848, enthusiasm gripped the new, pro-Western Romanian elite. Not for the first time, philanthropy paved the way for horrendous catastrophe. Assembled before the estates of hundreds of enlightened boyars, the Gypsy slaves were told: "Brothers, you are free! Go where your feet take you."
This "slave liberation," without the slightest logistical or psychological preparation, wreaked unthinkable havoc. Hundreds of thousands of Gypsies were suddenly free to die of hunger. With no money, clothing or livelihood, without a belief or a culture – with nothing but their naked humanity, they soon populated the prisons en masse. No one knows how many perished at the time from so much freedom, or how many have died until today as a result.

Faw_Peter Wrote:I didn't know that Italians hate Romanians. Is that true? If it was, I should have heard about that.
Maybe it's an illusion, maybe they hate the immigrants, and it doesn't mean that only Romanians are included in this category.

Benn Wrote:wow, Elena, how do you live there with this number of Gypsies. You probably are very patient, or maybe they don't cause you any trouble. I wouldn't like to live in a community surrounded by Gypsies, not because I'm discriminating them, it's just that I'm not that kind of person

M.Helen Wrote:well, don't you think it was your country's mistake that it allowed the Gypsies to live there? The fact you feel sorry for them means nothing for the world. Unfortunately changing the Italians' mind will be very difficult to do, so you'll just have to get used with that. I feel sorry for you!