May 6, 2014 • 43 mins
Gypsies were called that because they were long ago mistaken as Egyptians. Even their more appropriate name, Roma, is a misnomer since they're not from Romania. Find out about the mysterious history of this nomadic and genuinely misunderstood ethnic group.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry Roblin. Just a
couple of no Man's on the road. Yeah, with our
trinkets and our recordion. Uh you know gypsies, tramps and thieves.
(00:28):
You like my my Share? Yeah? I learned it from
Jack from UM Oh yeah, was that his Share? Well?
There was this one really classic scene where um he
meets Share in a restaurant, but he thinks it's like
a shared drag queen impersonator, Right, so he calls her
like Mr. Sister and like starts giving her porters on
(00:49):
how to do a good share. Yeah, he always does
the hair flip. Right. I love that show. It's a
good show. It's it holds up. It's in reruns now
it's just as good. Yeah. But yeah, I had this
that horrible Share song in my head like while I
was um studying, and it just wouldn't go away. So
I listened to it and now I'm like, no, it
(01:10):
just got worse. Uh. Is there a modern PC version
that's Roma Tramps and Thieves? No, but in my head,
you can also say gypsies, Franks, and beans, and it's
like kind of neutral. It's better than tramps and thieves.
Good point. But the term gypsy is that a good point.
(01:30):
It's a terrible point. Don't patronize me gypsies though. The
word itself, we're gonna try not to use because it's
it's a pejorative term. It is, at the very least,
it's now considered an ethnic slur uh. And it's in
part because it's associated with the concept of being jipped.
Like if somebody doesn't give you a fair deal or
(01:51):
something like that, or rips you off or something like that,
you've been jipped. It's it's short for gypsied. You've been
you've been dealt with somebody, right, not the other way around. Right,
because we believe it came from Egypt. Right, it was
a miss misapplication, misunderstanding in the Greek Isles by Josh Clark,
(02:15):
romance novel. All right, so let's let's get into this.
We're not gonna say gypsies like you said, Actually that's
not entirely true. We're probably going to forget once in
a while because we were both raised on shell Silverstein.
Do you remember you may reminded me of this one,
The Gypsies are Coming, which is it's very difficult to
find the original version of the Gypsies are Coming, which
(02:39):
is a poem of shell silversteins and where the sidewalk ends.
Because before his death, and I believe that sometimes in
the nineties or early two thousand's, it was that long ago,
but yeah, I remember he changed it from the Gypsies
are Coming to the Googis or the Googies because he
felt that it was mean towards Gypsies, and it kind
of is because it's about child stealing Gypsies, which is
(03:02):
a rumor um that's been attached to Gypsies forever. Yeah,
they steal children and use them as props in making
in pickpockets schemes. Yeah, there are a lot of, um,
I guess, rumors about the culture, and a lot of
them are founded and a lot of them are unfounded. Yeah,
none of it's just like black and white one way
(03:22):
or the other. The Gypsies aren't just some completely kicked
around put upon ethnic group. And and at the same
time they're not just a bunch of like thieving violin
playing marauders, you know. Yeah, So anyway, to get to
the point, we'll say Roma as much as we can
roma or romany, and we'll even explain why we call
(03:43):
them Roma. Shortly it sounds good. Well, we just missed.
International Roman Day was on April eight man and that's
been around and John Carey, Secretive of State carry came
out and that's some nice words to say about, uh,
you know, celebrating the rich Romanic culture and give him
(04:04):
a break, Yeah sort of, you know. But um, I
didn't know there was a International Roma Day, So I
don't know if it's sticking in like the mass public. Well,
you know, it takes a little time to gain traction.
It's been a while. It has been since the seventies.
The seventies were like a big era of um ethnic
(04:26):
and minority group like saying hey, we're here and like
we're standing up for our rights and you can't kick
us around anymore. You know, good for them, we're owning
our identity and the Roman did it too. But yeah,
it's been a little while. Uh. These days there are
around twelve million Roma. And when we say scattered, they
(04:50):
are scattered. And that's what they're known for, is not
dropping down permanent roots and moving along and one reason
is because they've often been forced through the centuries to
move along until today. Yeah, there's a there's a basically,
the Roma sociologists, the the authority on Romanic culture and people,
(05:13):
Dr Romani, Dr finessca Isabella finnesska Um. She basically points out,
like tell me another group that just willfully picks up
steaks and leaves all the time because they just feel
like it at the at their whim She's like that
that doesn't exist. They move largely mostly because they've been
(05:34):
forced to time and time again. I think humans desire
to route down. That's sort of what we've based our
success on is people. Yes, is staying one place and
fortifying and you know sedentary nous. I don't know about sedentary,
but like getting couch locked exactly. That's your new favorite term. Yeah, so,
(05:55):
uh yeah, they they are kind of spread all over
the EU. They're scattered to the way. Then they do
move quite frequently. But it's like you said, it's it's um,
it's not necessarily because they're nomadic. They are nomadic people,
but not necessarily because they want to be. But the
problem is is where wherever they go. Virtually everywhere they
go in the European Union. Um, they are kind of
(06:18):
forced out eventually at some point. Yeah, I sent you
that article today and it is literally in today's news
how Paris those elite note from the chief of police
in Paris that said, on the orders of his superiors,
police are to day and night locate Roma families living
in the street and systematically evict them, even though that
(06:39):
is supposedly illegal in France. And uh it is and
it's a chic area of Paris, and they don't want
um people in poverty. And a lot of the Romantic
people are still living in poverty pretty much, all of
them are. I'm not saying that makes it right. All
all of the Romani except for the gypsy kings the
band are having in poverty pretty much. They are actual
(07:04):
Gypsies that look, I thought they were from Mexico. No,
I thought so too, man, They're from Andalusia, Spain, and
their parents were all Romani that were basically kicked out
of Spain by Franco. And so they're like legitimate Roma
people the band and the only ones with any money
(07:26):
right pretty much. And I'm like, wonder what they do, Like,
are they still they still have that Roma thing? To
them or are they just like to see you guys later.
I think from what I've read, they the Roman people
are are, you know, embrace their heritage. It seems like it,
I mean to to, almost to a detrimental degree. Well.
(07:47):
Last September um Manuel Valls Uh, the Interior minister at
the time in France, declared that Roman Gypsies were incompatible
with the French way of life and should return home. Yeah.
Europes really going crazy lately, Like the Dutch are forcing
all of their Um immigrants to learn Dutch or get out. Basically,
did they realize how hard Dutches Yeah? Uh, maybe that's
(08:09):
the point, you know, um. Yeah, And apparently there was
like a huge push in the Sun newspaper in Britain,
um get rid of Gypsy beggars from the street. Um.
And yeah, the Roma in particular are have kind of
been the butt of all this stuff. It's not just France.
(08:30):
I saw an article where in Rome Um to Rome
to Roma camps in Rome were rated. All of the
people were dragged out taking to the airport put on
a plane to Bosnia, and a couple of them were
underage kids whose parents weren't in the group at the time.
So imagine if you come home from a day of
trading cars and your kid is in Bosnia because the
(08:54):
cops just rounded them up because they didn't want you
to live on the street there any longer. Trading cars. Yeah,
that's what they're into big time. They still trade horses too, Yeah,
but among them they also trade cars too. They'll go
to like Germany and buy a car for cheap and
then take it to Romanian sell it for a little
bit of premium and they make some money. That one
that's called Craigslist, buddy, kind of romani Craigslist. Good for them. Uh.
(09:18):
So the point is there, wherever they go in the EU,
they end up getting the bombs rush basically. Yeah. I
mean it's called they call it the gypsy problem still
to this day in the European Union. So, and the
one place that they can kind of call home is Romania. Yeah,
and I think Transylvania too has a pretty robust, fairly
settled population. You want to understand, I'm sure they do.
(09:42):
And they were led there actually by a purchase by
a guy named vlad dra Cool in the fifteenth century.
I think I've heard of that guy. Yeah, So let's
talk about how the Roma ended up in their adopted
homeland of Romania where they come for originally, because apparently
even they aren't certain. Well, no, that's the one thing
(10:04):
they're certain about, apparently is where they come from. But
that's about it because they there's a high illiteracy rates,
so there's not a lot of record keeping, a lot
of not a lot of genealogy throughout the years, so
a lot of a lot of it's just kind of
lost to history. Um. But I think they did settle
on the fact that they came from India, Josh, which knew, right,
(10:28):
you're being coy, That is true, and it took a
very long time. Um, So the Romans say, we're from
India and they know that. Now, no one knew whether
that was correct or not. They were called gypsies because
people thought they were from Egypt. Um, they were in Romania,
but they crossed the Balkans. Um. It was really just
(10:49):
very confusing. They were just basically this nomadic group of
dark skinned people who spoke their own language and didn't
practice the prevailing religions, so everybody just hated them. Well, finally,
in the eighteenth century, Uh, a Hungarian scholar theologian I believe,
decided he wanted to kind of dig into Romani language
(11:10):
and figure out what the deal was with it, and
he found quite surprisingly that a lot of it contained Sanskrit. Yeah,
so that's gonna put you in northern India. And then
they did some genetic testing to kind of get that
stuff confirmed and basically came up with the fact that
they migrated out of India about But the dates get
(11:34):
a little hazy for sure. Well, some people think that
as seven D. This as far back as I think
anyone's willing to go. But then I think a lot
of historians agree that they're actually descended from a specific
group who were ejected from northern India because of raids
from Persia around a thousand to a thousand D. Now,
(11:56):
was that with the spread of Islam, Yeah, Mohammad of Gosni, Yeah,
he wanted to spread Islam around and so he brought in. Uh. Well,
the Hindus organized a group of people to fight that, obviously,
to fight the Muslims, and they had an army called
the raj Puts. I think that's as good as any
(12:16):
or as the the j silent are a Jput No,
uh No, It's like Maharaja maybe, yeah, that sounds better, uh,
and they defeated the army. Um, I'm sorry, they were
defeated and then taking captive and then another group from
Persia came along the se and they conquered them and
(12:36):
then took the raj Puts out of Northern India and
into what is now Turkey, right, and they basically the
DSPOR has started then supposedly, yeah, that was where they
think the Romani originally came from. They were displaced Indians
fighting to protect their homeland. And they basically when they
were ejected from uh, Northern India, Yeah, by Mohammed of
(13:02):
Gosni and his people, they became slaves. And then when
Mohammed of Gosney was defeated by the Celjics, they became
slaves for the Celjics. Turkey pretty much put upon from
the get go, right, So they were slaves, servant class
um laborers for many centuries and they finally made it out.
(13:22):
I guess once the um. Once the Ottomans defeated, Now
what's the Christians? I guess when in during the Crusades
and defeated the Turks and Istan Bull was converted from
Constantinople the um Rajputs, who were by now the Roma,
(13:43):
were moved from Turkey across the Balkans into present day
Transylvania Wallachia, and a large number of them were purchased
by Vlad dreck Cool, also known as Lad Tepish or
Vlad the Impaler or Count Dracula. He owned some of
the first Romani people. How many across I think like
(14:05):
five hundred or five thousands or something like that. Yeah,
and they suffered tremendously. Anyone who worked for Vaude suffered tremendously. Well,
lets to do an episode on him. He hated dust
on the shelves. He did, may fly into a rage. Um.
It's interesting, though to see their religion these days of Roma,
like it's it's kind of all over the map. There
(14:26):
are some Christians, um, there are some Muslims, right, and
some Hindu. I don't know. Yeah, I think there's not
like a a single religion for for an ethnic group. Well,
I guess it's not the weirdest thing. Well no, but
I mean I think what what happened was there was
a group of them, and then the group became further
(14:46):
and further fragmented, and so you can take all of
the language and the religious police and all of this
this stuff that is Romani culture, and you're probably gonna
find some similar elements that you can all trace back
to about at a d when they crossed over into
the Balkans and then started to spread from there. Yeah,
but I think that makes a lot of sense though,
(15:07):
because apparently even the tribes today speak different versions of
the same language. So it's they don't have like a
codified language, even though they're pushing for that, right they are,
they think that might help. So they're in Romania right
what's now present day Romania, UM, And for the next
four hundred years they are slaves in Romania until Romania
(15:29):
abolishes slavery, and even now that's still that basically their
home base. Romania is like, okay, we'll take care of
you guys, sorry about the last four centuries, UM, And
no one else in the EU will. But Romania does
provide for their Romani population more than any other country there.
But they were subjugated there too, weren't they, or at
(15:50):
least discriminated against. Yeah, there were slaves for four years
they well, I mean after that though, weren't they like
they had a hard time they weren't served in stores,
and oh yes, it still goes on today in Romania. Okay,
I thought they were a little like more accepting. No,
I think that's like kind of them. I think that's
the That doesn't mean that Romania is just like um
(16:12):
Roma loving, right, They're just they treat them slightly less
badly than the rest of your slight Roma tolerant. Okay,
let's settle on that. Um. But because of the fact
that they weren't um allowed service in stores and that
maybe they had low literacy and they couldn't get jobs,
no one wants to hire them. It was sort of
(16:33):
this cyclical thing where they had to resort to thievery
and deception. And it's just how do you get build
yourself up as a people when you can't work. You
still need to eat, So how do you eat? You
maybe steal something, and so it's just sort of the
constant cycle that to this day they haven't been able
to break out of. You know, Yeah, it's it's kind
(16:55):
of a self perpetuating thing. Like they have a bad
reputation in part because they do behave badly, and they
behave badly in part because they have a bad reputation,
so they can't get lag up like thousands of years.
It's it's unbelievable. Yeah, and there's I think one of
the probably the hallmarks of um Romanic culture is it's um.
(17:16):
It just won't assimilate. Like they just don't assimilate into
whatever culture there and their their visitors, their guests there
um or parasites or leeches depending on you know where
you live and how you feel about them. Um, but
they are not interested in becoming part of your culture
where you live. Yeah, they seem pretty private and like
(17:39):
only concerned about their tribe, right. And the thing is
the problem with that is that tends to make the
majority of a culture very nervous. Yeah, well, why aren't
you like eating our liberty cabbage and freedom fries? Like
what's your problem? Well, you know, I bet they love cabbage. Well, like,
why why don't you want to like work nine to five?
(18:01):
And you know that kind of stuff. So when when
any group won't assimilate and exists on the fringes seemingly,
you know, by their own accord, that's UM. That definitely
raises a lot of suspicion in the majority culture. Unless
you live in Montana, yeah, it's true, so maybe they
play well, there have friends in Montana. They know I'm kidding.
(18:25):
So right for this message break, we're going to talk
about some of the atrocities they suffered during World War two. Yeah, alright,
it's World War two. The Nazis are doing their thing,
and they are not just persecuting Jewish people, they are
persecuting anyone that is a minority that they don't agree with.
(18:46):
In the Roma were some of the first ones that
they targeted, and by um what's the word, by percentage
or of their total population maybe even suffered more than
the Jewish people as far as like like half of
the Roman people or something were executed. I think it
(19:06):
was half of a million were in Germany or in
the in the lands that Germany conquered. Yeah, and they
you know, they were. There's a documentary apparently out and
I read an article on it, but they didn't even
give the name of it. But it's uh, these filmmakers
in Toronto, Jewish filmmakers made a documentary about um, the
(19:26):
Romani Holocaust because it's just not a story you ever hear.
But the filmmakers Tom Raski and Lynn Binder, like I said,
we're Jewish Holocaust survivors, children of Holocaust survivors. And the
director and uh them Roma musician actually helped make it
so they are still the musical people, not just the
Gypsy kings. And we said, we don't know the name
(19:48):
of the documentary. I couldn't find. It's a terrible article.
It was terrible. Um. So, Yeah, during World War Two,
the Roma and the Jews were the only two ethnic
groups that were targeted because of their ethnicity by the Nazis.
Um And yeah, they suffered tremendously. And they have a
word for it, um. It means the great devouring. It's
(20:10):
a poor amos port amos. Yeah, it means the great devouring. Yeah.
It could also mean rape apparently, which kind of puts
a button on that experience. Uh. And I didtle more
reading about it too. Apparently they really annoyed the s
S as well, because they would not go quietly like
(20:31):
they would say. They would have them dig their own graves,
stand naked in front of them just so they could
chew them and push them in. And uh, he said
that they wouldn't just stand there and like take their
death gracefully. They would yell and scream and run around
and try and dodge bullets, and I guess it was
pretty sensible. Well yeah, exactly, but I guess that's part
(20:51):
of the you know, the survivor in them, because they've
been booted all around. You know, they gotta do what
they can. So like this guy's pointing a gun at me,
I'm gonna try and get out of here, even if
I'm naked, sad, And the rest of the majority of
culture was like, no, you just stand still, right, what's
wrong with you? Unbelievable. So one of the more shameful
(21:14):
but also telling things about the Roma Holocaust was the
way it was treated afterwards. It was basically unmentioned at
the Nuremberg trials, um, which you know, we're to address
the Holocaust as a whole, you know, and just kind
of ignored like this one whole thing because well it
(21:35):
was the Roma apparently. And then, uh, one s S
officer in history has was ever persecuted or prosecuted for
crimes against Roma during World War Two, just one person,
even though half a million Roma died. So why, my friend,
we I don't think we posted the question, Uh, why
(21:57):
did they think they came from eagypt To begin with oh, yeah,
well apparently it was just a complete accident. Yeah. Well, um,
they came from northern India originally, and a lot of
Roma have a dark complexion um and look the part
maybe a little to uh to an untrained eye. Um.
(22:17):
And they ended up settling in the Greek Isles for
a little bit or some at some point some Roma
did and around there the place where they settled, there
was a place where they came from along the Adriatic
had been known as Little Egypt. To the people in
Peloponnesia thought oh, well, they're Egyptians, so they started calling
(22:39):
them gypsies clearly because they live in Little Egypt and
they have dark complexions. That's interesting. So what about these days?
It's interesting history. But these days they still, like we said,
have a lot of are still musicians. A lot of
them still uh pick up camp and move. Some of
them still trade horses. Uh. They're known for being metal
(23:00):
workers and uh, well a lot of them have trades
that were learned as slaves in Romania that have been
passed down and are still practiced today. So like, for example,
some group that was that were copper workers as slaves
in Romania. Their ancestors were the groups today do scrap metal.
(23:22):
That's what they deal with, so they know what they're
doing with with metal. Like, there're a lot of the
trades that a Roma clan does for a living. Yeah,
um is passed down from their their days of slaves
in Romania. Yeah, and the fact that they're still musicians
today is definitely one of those because they found they
could make a few bucks by even appearing trying to
(23:43):
appear more exotic and do performances and look at us
where the weird exotic Roman people or the Gypsies. Look
how colorful our clothes are exactly And I'm playing my
finger tambourine while you're getting your pocket picked perhaps out.
That's that's something that happened. So was it? Because apparently
(24:04):
the media is totally cool with just perpetuating lies and
untruths about the Roma and as not to be trusted
anymore than they purport. The Roma should shouldn't be the
media the media reports like um. I read that in
that article I read in The Guardian by Dr Finnesska,
(24:24):
the Auroma authority, she points out that I want some
British paper said that a Roma woman who they named
like by name named her son Lucifer, which is apparently
wholly untrue. But this is in like the nineties that
that papers were printing this, So apparently the Roma have
(24:45):
always been this group that you can kick around and
everybody's cool with basically with you kicking him around. So
media reports of the stuff that they do are should
be taken with a grain of salt. Yeah, I think so,
because they're very often conflated. Yeah, but the point this
article makes, this is by Kristen Konger of Stuff Mom
Never Told You. She does make the point that a
(25:06):
lot of it is reputation, but a lot of it
has earned reputation because again, they were kind of force
from town to town, and they were poverty stricken, and
so they may have had to pick some pockets here
and there to put food in the mouths. You know,
I'm just saying, don't read, don't believe everything you're read
in the papers. Um. Sociologically speaking, the EurOMA constitute what's
(25:28):
called the middleman minority, which is a group that refuses
to assimilate UM and but still it is discriminated against,
but still maintains enough UM communication or contact with the
larger culture that they can benefit economically from that, Like
they can still sell you a car, trade you a car. Uh.
(25:51):
They're paternalistic, so it's um super old school, like the
women are expected to stay home and work the else
and the men may or may not work at all. Uh.
Young girls, they still have arranged marriages even to this day. Um.
Getting their daughters matched up with another another person of
the Romanic cultures is important to them. And apparently teenagers
(26:15):
as well. Yeah, like as young as twelve. It's a
little weird, is that right? Yeah? Um, and they because
of the literacy rate. I think it's especially hard on
young women. They don't care very much about educating them, right. Um.
And then employment is just kind of a side thing
(26:36):
you do when you need money. For the most part.
Part of that is that's just kind of part of
Romani culture. But it asks the question, uh, you know,
do they is that part of Romani culture because they
haven't been able to get a job, or do they
just not work? And that's part of Romani culture, right?
You know, which which side of the coin has actually
(26:56):
created this this situation. But they apparently we're giving jobs
under communism in Eastern Europe. Uh, and went to work
in factories and things like that for a little while,
but then after Communism disintegrated, the the Romo were fired.
First apparently they were the persones out the door. Yeah,
(27:17):
they're like the bosses no longer the boss. You're fired.
I'm firing you. Yeah. And then of course from that
rose more complaints of stealing and thievery and uh a
lot of it too. Isn't just uh illegal activities, but
a lot of begging and panhandling and stuff that apparently
in cheek districts in Paris is unsightly. So it sounds
(27:39):
like from this description that Romani women are they do
almost all of the work, especially around the household. They do,
and then men may or may not even have jobs. Yeah,
but they're they're these they do existing clans, and these
clans do have tribunals to handle disputes, and the men
kind of run all that off, like the government of
(28:02):
the of the village or group. Yeah, whereas the women
are like running the household stuff. But the men are
apparently totally clearly dominant. Yeah. Ah, I think that's true.
And unless it's just something we read, that's not because
I read one of the filmmakers for that documentary said,
you know, we're told that they aren't even that nomadic anymore.
(28:25):
I'm like, but that flies in the face of everything
I've read so well, it's in this article as well.
It says like a lot of them want to settle
down and are trying to make um, trying to establish
roots in places, but they get kicked out eventually. I
think they fared pretty well here in the States apparently,
so I don't know about like, I'm not saying they're
(28:45):
they're rising to CEO positions or anything, but I think
they haven't been h like kicked around like they have
been in the EU at least. Well, America loves it's
traveling romanticize thing, you know, yeah, the the open road. Yeah, yes,
that kind of thing. So anybody who's on the open
(29:06):
road is you know, romanticized a little bit more here,
I think than in Europe. I think you're right, Um,
this this takes a toll though, all the all the
poverty and the moving around and the lack of education
is going to take a toll on on any ethnicity,
and it's definitely happening with the Romani because they apparently
(29:27):
um compared to similar populations in Slovakia, Ireland, Czech Republican
Bulgaria die about six to ten years earlier, and infant
mortality rates are double and triple of those in surrounding
ethnic groups, which is disturbing. Which you can say, oh,
that's right, Well, their poverty stricken. Uh, they don't eat
(29:48):
the most nutritious meals around because their poverty stricken. They
don't have easy access to healthcare. On the other side
of the coin, apparently, um, they also typically shunned um
local medicine in favor of their own medicine, which is
often homeopathic apparently. And so for example, tuberculosis is just
(30:11):
like a it's like a fatal disease, even though if
you step outside of camp into town, it's not right
if you just go to that hospital right there, yeah,
it's not Uh. Yeah, here's the illiteracy rate of romani
girls can't read. Yeah, and apparently most romantic kids have
(30:32):
either gender don't complete high school. So all of this,
the fact that they are poverty stricken, that they have
lower life expectancy, higher informortality rates, lower education, higher literacy rates,
it's tough to get a leg up, especially when the
entire world basically looks at you like you are never
(30:53):
to be trusted. Yeah, so what do you do? I
will tell you what you do after this tam break.
I'm dying to know a solution. Yeah, well, you know
it's it's a long run. We already talked about the solution.
But you organize, you get together and you say, hey,
we are this group of people. We um we have
(31:17):
a history, we have a past. Because Dr finnessca Isabella
Finnesska points out quite rightly, I think the easiest way
to dehumanize people is to strip them of any context,
any history, and that means that the Roma are right
for exploitation when it comes to that dehumanization, because they
(31:39):
really don't have a history. Like historians think maybe that
they came out of northern India thousand a thousand years ago.
They probably did, but it's not entirely confirmed. Right. Can
I read this quote by her? Yeah, it's like the
saddest thing I've ever read, and this is by Finesska.
The Roma have no heroes, no myths of origin of
(31:59):
a great liberation, of the founding of a nation, of
a promised land. And that's like pretty much puts the
Jerry on topic, right, since pretty much every other culture
on the planet does have that. It makes them appear shiftless, aimless, lazy,
like so lazy they don't even care about their own culture,
(32:20):
so how can anybody else care about their culture? Well, finally,
some Roma got together in the seventies and said, we're
gonna start being Roma Romani activists, Like we're misunderstood. And
I think from this interaction inside and out and the
separation between us and the rest of the world, there's
a this misunderstanding is creating some self prophecies, self fulfilling prophecies,
(32:45):
self perpetuating myths. And they got together and said, okay,
we come from Northern India, India. We want you to
sponsor like a congress, and they did in Yeah, it
was very awesome, the first World Romanic Congress. And uh
there were Romani from fourteen different countries and they picked
(33:06):
out a flag and an anthem, which just sounds so
weird that you would have to do that in the seventies.
I'll bet it's exuberant. I'm sure it was. And um
oh you think, I'll bet the Gypsy can can play
it really well and it probably sounds like Beirut, you
know that band. He sounds like yeah, um m, yeah,
(33:32):
uh so it was. You know, it was a big
unifying moment and a rare unifying moment for the people
in and because they had the sponsorship of India though
uh the u N had to they had to maybe
they really wanted to officially recognized them as an ethnic
(33:53):
group in So that was a victory seven years later. Yeah,
wouldn't you say, well, what's um, what's sad though? Is it?
I guess the one of the more prevalent proposals for
getting Romani like a leg up is for them to
assault assimilate culturally. Apparently nothing's ever really going to change
(34:17):
until they are willing to assimilate culturally. Um. And that's
kind of like the crux of the matter. The problem
is is if if you, um, if you you start
to assimilate, you lose your culture. Yeah, which is happening somewhat.
You know. They they're already having a hard time holding
onto their dialect because of its fractured nature with the
(34:39):
different tribes. But like you said, assimilation it's a bit
of a sad thing, you know, let go of your
own past that's already checkered. So uh, I don't know,
that would that mean the end of the Romani. Well,
I mean you you can also make the case that,
you know, the Chinese have been um uh middlemen might
(34:59):
no already, Jewish people have been middleman minority in different places.
Um Any group that comes to a new place and
settles and then just kind of maintains its ethnic identity
for a while is a middleman minority. And you can
look around and say, well, you know, Chinese have assimilated
(35:21):
into the US pretty fully, but you still understand there's
such a thing as you know, Chinese ethnic and cultural
identity not dead Chinatown in most major cities. So I
don't know, maybe they'll be like Romani Town in San
Francisco a hundred years from now. In San Francisco, the
president will be Romani. You know, you know who knows,
(35:44):
But it won't happen apparently, I guess that's the best.
That's the the deal that's on the table. Yeah, we'll
take care of you, but you have to stop being
outside fringe dwelling weirdos. Well and until there, like this
whole Paris deal. That the reason why they're shuffling him
out of this one district, it's because they were shuffled
out of another district. That's yeah. And it happens on
(36:04):
a macro scale as well. Yeah, like not just within
the city, within Europe as a whole. Well, and one
of the I can't remember the ladies name, but one
of the French UM bureaucrats said, we we we just
need to get them back to where they came from,
back to Romania. Oh well yeah, it's like really he
just said that, you know. Yeah. Well, plus also shows
(36:25):
a little bit of historic I literacy. Um, but do
you want to talk about other terms for him depending
on where they are. So in the UK they call
him travelers. Uh. In Rome and Spain they're called gitanas,
So the Gypsy Gypsy Kings are technically gaitanas. Um. Let's see.
(36:47):
In Germany and Italy they call him Sinto. I can't
believe I thought the Gypsy Kings were from Mexico. That's
pretty ignorant. No, No, I think most people thought that.
Who aren't like into world music, you know? But I
heard of the Gypsy Kings or whatever. You know, it's
they see they play huge guitars. Okay, thank you, you
know I'm with you on now. I just didn't want
to be the white guy. It's like their Mexican right.
(37:09):
I don't think it's like that. Uh so that's the
Gypsy Kings. You got anything else on gypsies on Roma? Man?
I'm sorry, I know, but the title of the article
is how Gypsies work. And I think it'll attract listeners
because people. I don't think a lot of people understand
what the heck it is. I didn't what Roma. Well,
(37:31):
it makes you think, like, well, they're from Rome. Yeah, Romania. No,
I wonder if that means that Romania is from Rome.
This is one of the more confusing episodes we've done.
As it turns out, if you want to learn more
about the Roma or Romani, don't take those words. Type
gypsy into the search bar at house to works dot
com and it will bring up this article. And I said,
(37:52):
search bars means it's time for listener mail. Uh. This
is a question post to us from Josh Roberts of Washington,
d C. Hey, guys, I'm a big fan. I found
the podcast last year and downloaded a few episodes, but
it caught my interests and ended up going back to
the beginning and I've listened to every episode on iTunes. Josh,
(38:13):
I don't know if you know this, but we have
a lot more episodes than that, my friend, Yeah, I
know that. Are you talking to just the Josh Roberts,
it's not Josh Clark. Yeah. We have a whole page
now with all of our episodes on our website that
stuff dot com. iTunes features the most recent three one episodes. Yeah,
and we have like six d and thirty something episodes.
(38:33):
So he may know that, but maybe not go back
on list of the old ones that they're pretty funny.
There is some good ones in there, not the real
old ones, but you know, after maybe fifty they really
started to get good, talking so fast and like it's
it's a total jackass. And we left the cave that
we recorded in the can uh Okay. So he's writing
(38:56):
because he has an important question to ask. Imagine that
time travel is real, and you and go to any
time place in all of history, and you could bring
one thing with you. My question is where would you
go and what would you bring. I've been asking people
this question since I was sixteen. Now I'm forty two
years old, and I've had many interesting and some disturbing
answers about our money making ploys like the old back
(39:20):
to the future, bringing a sports almanac. Many people talk
about going back to Mozart Beethoven's time to bring and
bringing a recording device, and then of course, other notable
answers include shooting Hitler, stopping the murder of JFK. R.
M Olk. My favorite answer is going back to the
late fourteen hundreds with a battleship and making sure the
(39:40):
Europeans never reached the America's Yeah, so we have to
answer this now. My question to Josh Roberts is is
this something that are you gonna go come back to
present daytime? Because you know, what good would it go
due to go record Beethoven if you're stuck there or
the recording of Beethoven there's a caveat so if you
(40:02):
can come back to present daytime. I've thought about this,
I haven't had the benefit of thinking. Just keep thinking.
I think I might go back to the time of
Jesus and biblical times because well documented my constant struggle
with my religious upbringing over the years. He's going and
I'm gonna go to the source, and I'm taking a
(40:24):
video camera with unlimited amounts of you know, recording space,
let's say, yeah, a bunch of them and I can
bring this back, And I think it would I think
it would delight everyone. I think Christians would be delighted
because you have real footage of a sermon on the
mount and these I think delighted might be understating the
reaction you would get. It would be over the moon
(40:46):
about having original recordings of Jesus doing this thing. I
would think so. And I think it would also be
helpful to just sort of sort out what the deal
was and uh say, you know what are these stories
out glory? Are they? Did they really happen? Am I
going to go back and see people walking on the
water and come back and say, hey, you know what,
(41:08):
it's all absolutely true everyone. I think it would be
like the greatest discovery and religion that has had such
an impact on world history. So that's my boom, That's
what I'm doing. That's a good one. Thanks. Um. Uh.
Let's see, I should have sent this to you ahead
of time. I feel bad for springing it on you. Well,
(41:28):
I'll just give a cursory one. I would I would
go to um. I would go to probably some place
that's kind of an exotic locale, now, but like sixty
years ago when it was super exotic. Not so. I
would say, you know what, I would go to, like um,
(41:52):
Polynesia or Cuba. Yeah, in okay, and I realized they
were nowhere near the same thing. But I would go
to I would go to Cuba in nine and the
thing I would take would be interesting. So you just
go for a vacation forever vacation. Yeah all right. See,
(42:13):
I would recommend you go back even further to Cuba
before there was anyone there with like a big gun,
and then you own Cuba. I don't want to own Cuba.
And like I like the local flavor, you know what
I mean, Like I like the local flavor. That's like
not been Uh there's not like an old navy anywhere
near this local flavor. It's like, gotcha, totally local flavor.
(42:36):
But they also have you know, mohitos already. Okay, So
you would go get away from the things of man
back in the day with your wife where they have
alcohol served. Yes, it's a great answer. Thanks. I love it.
It was off the cuff and just I can just
picture you and you me kicking it in nineteen twenty
and Cuba, Cuba. Yeah, very one of those shirts to
(43:00):
be one of those guys who were Cuban shirts. Yeah,
what are those called the Cuban shirts? Yeah, there's noth name.
I can't remember. I'm sure it's like the Cruiseware right, yeah,
but with two pockets and the unnecessary seams and there's
the same somewhere. John Hodgman and Jesse Thorner a going
we can't hear you all right, Well that was it
for Romani. If you want to hang out with me
(43:22):
and Chuck outside of this podcast, you can. You can
find us on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook. You can just
look up Stuff you Should Know s Y, s K,
Josh and Chuck on your favorite web browser. We're gonna
bring up all that stuff. You can send us an
email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and hang
out with us on our website Stuff you Should Know
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(43:49):
Is it how Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry Roblin. Just a
couple of no Man's on the road. Yeah, with our
trinkets and our recordion. Uh you know gypsies, tramps and thieves.
(00:28):
You like my my Share? Yeah? I learned it from
Jack from UM Oh yeah, was that his Share? Well?
There was this one really classic scene where um he
meets Share in a restaurant, but he thinks it's like
a shared drag queen impersonator, Right, so he calls her
like Mr. Sister and like starts giving her porters on
(00:49):
how to do a good share. Yeah, he always does
the hair flip. Right. I love that show. It's a
good show. It's it holds up. It's in reruns now
it's just as good. Yeah. But yeah, I had this
that horrible Share song in my head like while I
was um studying, and it just wouldn't go away. So
I listened to it and now I'm like, no, it
(01:10):
just got worse. Uh. Is there a modern PC version
that's Roma Tramps and Thieves? No, but in my head,
you can also say gypsies, Franks, and beans, and it's
like kind of neutral. It's better than tramps and thieves.
Good point. But the term gypsy is that a good point.
(01:30):
It's a terrible point. Don't patronize me gypsies though. The
word itself, we're gonna try not to use because it's
it's a pejorative term. It is, at the very least,
it's now considered an ethnic slur uh. And it's in
part because it's associated with the concept of being jipped.
Like if somebody doesn't give you a fair deal or
(01:51):
something like that, or rips you off or something like that,
you've been jipped. It's it's short for gypsied. You've been
you've been dealt with somebody, right, not the other way around. Right,
because we believe it came from Egypt. Right, it was
a miss misapplication, misunderstanding in the Greek Isles by Josh Clark,
(02:15):
romance novel. All right, so let's let's get into this.
We're not gonna say gypsies like you said, Actually that's
not entirely true. We're probably going to forget once in
a while because we were both raised on shell Silverstein.
Do you remember you may reminded me of this one,
The Gypsies are Coming, which is it's very difficult to
find the original version of the Gypsies are Coming, which
(02:39):
is a poem of shell silversteins and where the sidewalk ends.
Because before his death, and I believe that sometimes in
the nineties or early two thousand's, it was that long ago,
but yeah, I remember he changed it from the Gypsies
are Coming to the Googis or the Googies because he
felt that it was mean towards Gypsies, and it kind
of is because it's about child stealing Gypsies, which is
(03:02):
a rumor um that's been attached to Gypsies forever. Yeah,
they steal children and use them as props in making
in pickpockets schemes. Yeah, there are a lot of, um,
I guess, rumors about the culture, and a lot of
them are founded and a lot of them are unfounded. Yeah,
none of it's just like black and white one way
(03:22):
or the other. The Gypsies aren't just some completely kicked
around put upon ethnic group. And and at the same
time they're not just a bunch of like thieving violin
playing marauders, you know. Yeah, So anyway, to get to
the point, we'll say Roma as much as we can
roma or romany, and we'll even explain why we call
(03:43):
them Roma. Shortly it sounds good. Well, we just missed.
International Roman Day was on April eight man and that's
been around and John Carey, Secretive of State carry came
out and that's some nice words to say about, uh,
you know, celebrating the rich Romanic culture and give him
(04:04):
a break, Yeah sort of, you know. But um, I
didn't know there was a International Roma Day, So I
don't know if it's sticking in like the mass public. Well,
you know, it takes a little time to gain traction.
It's been a while. It has been since the seventies.
The seventies were like a big era of um ethnic
(04:26):
and minority group like saying hey, we're here and like
we're standing up for our rights and you can't kick
us around anymore. You know, good for them, we're owning
our identity and the Roman did it too. But yeah,
it's been a little while. Uh. These days there are
around twelve million Roma. And when we say scattered, they
(04:50):
are scattered. And that's what they're known for, is not
dropping down permanent roots and moving along and one reason
is because they've often been forced through the centuries to
move along until today. Yeah, there's a there's a basically,
the Roma sociologists, the the authority on Romanic culture and people,
(05:13):
Dr Romani, Dr finessca Isabella finnesska Um. She basically points out,
like tell me another group that just willfully picks up
steaks and leaves all the time because they just feel
like it at the at their whim She's like that
that doesn't exist. They move largely mostly because they've been
(05:34):
forced to time and time again. I think humans desire
to route down. That's sort of what we've based our
success on is people. Yes, is staying one place and
fortifying and you know sedentary nous. I don't know about sedentary,
but like getting couch locked exactly. That's your new favorite term. Yeah, so,
(05:55):
uh yeah, they they are kind of spread all over
the EU. They're scattered to the way. Then they do
move quite frequently. But it's like you said, it's it's um,
it's not necessarily because they're nomadic. They are nomadic people,
but not necessarily because they want to be. But the
problem is is where wherever they go. Virtually everywhere they
go in the European Union. Um, they are kind of
(06:18):
forced out eventually at some point. Yeah, I sent you
that article today and it is literally in today's news
how Paris those elite note from the chief of police
in Paris that said, on the orders of his superiors,
police are to day and night locate Roma families living
in the street and systematically evict them, even though that
(06:39):
is supposedly illegal in France. And uh it is and
it's a chic area of Paris, and they don't want
um people in poverty. And a lot of the Romantic
people are still living in poverty pretty much, all of
them are. I'm not saying that makes it right. All
all of the Romani except for the gypsy kings the
band are having in poverty pretty much. They are actual
(07:04):
Gypsies that look, I thought they were from Mexico. No,
I thought so too, man, They're from Andalusia, Spain, and
their parents were all Romani that were basically kicked out
of Spain by Franco. And so they're like legitimate Roma
people the band and the only ones with any money
(07:26):
right pretty much. And I'm like, wonder what they do, Like,
are they still they still have that Roma thing? To
them or are they just like to see you guys later.
I think from what I've read, they the Roman people
are are, you know, embrace their heritage. It seems like it,
I mean to to, almost to a detrimental degree. Well.
(07:47):
Last September um Manuel Valls Uh, the Interior minister at
the time in France, declared that Roman Gypsies were incompatible
with the French way of life and should return home. Yeah.
Europes really going crazy lately, Like the Dutch are forcing
all of their Um immigrants to learn Dutch or get out. Basically,
did they realize how hard Dutches Yeah? Uh, maybe that's
(08:09):
the point, you know, um. Yeah, And apparently there was
like a huge push in the Sun newspaper in Britain,
um get rid of Gypsy beggars from the street. Um.
And yeah, the Roma in particular are have kind of
been the butt of all this stuff. It's not just France.
(08:30):
I saw an article where in Rome Um to Rome
to Roma camps in Rome were rated. All of the
people were dragged out taking to the airport put on
a plane to Bosnia, and a couple of them were
underage kids whose parents weren't in the group at the time.
So imagine if you come home from a day of
trading cars and your kid is in Bosnia because the
(08:54):
cops just rounded them up because they didn't want you
to live on the street there any longer. Trading cars. Yeah,
that's what they're into big time. They still trade horses too, Yeah,
but among them they also trade cars too. They'll go
to like Germany and buy a car for cheap and
then take it to Romanian sell it for a little
bit of premium and they make some money. That one
that's called Craigslist, buddy, kind of romani Craigslist. Good for them. Uh.
(09:18):
So the point is there, wherever they go in the EU,
they end up getting the bombs rush basically. Yeah. I
mean it's called they call it the gypsy problem still
to this day in the European Union. So, and the
one place that they can kind of call home is Romania. Yeah,
and I think Transylvania too has a pretty robust, fairly
settled population. You want to understand, I'm sure they do.
(09:42):
And they were led there actually by a purchase by
a guy named vlad dra Cool in the fifteenth century.
I think I've heard of that guy. Yeah, So let's
talk about how the Roma ended up in their adopted
homeland of Romania where they come for originally, because apparently
even they aren't certain. Well, no, that's the one thing
(10:04):
they're certain about, apparently is where they come from. But
that's about it because they there's a high illiteracy rates,
so there's not a lot of record keeping, a lot
of not a lot of genealogy throughout the years, so
a lot of a lot of it's just kind of
lost to history. Um. But I think they did settle
on the fact that they came from India, Josh, which knew, right,
(10:28):
you're being coy, That is true, and it took a
very long time. Um, So the Romans say, we're from
India and they know that. Now, no one knew whether
that was correct or not. They were called gypsies because
people thought they were from Egypt. Um, they were in Romania,
but they crossed the Balkans. Um. It was really just
(10:49):
very confusing. They were just basically this nomadic group of
dark skinned people who spoke their own language and didn't
practice the prevailing religions, so everybody just hated them. Well, finally,
in the eighteenth century, Uh, a Hungarian scholar theologian I believe,
decided he wanted to kind of dig into Romani language
(11:10):
and figure out what the deal was with it, and
he found quite surprisingly that a lot of it contained Sanskrit. Yeah,
so that's gonna put you in northern India. And then
they did some genetic testing to kind of get that
stuff confirmed and basically came up with the fact that
they migrated out of India about But the dates get
(11:34):
a little hazy for sure. Well, some people think that
as seven D. This as far back as I think
anyone's willing to go. But then I think a lot
of historians agree that they're actually descended from a specific
group who were ejected from northern India because of raids
from Persia around a thousand to a thousand D. Now,
(11:56):
was that with the spread of Islam, Yeah, Mohammad of Gosni, Yeah,
he wanted to spread Islam around and so he brought in. Uh. Well,
the Hindus organized a group of people to fight that, obviously,
to fight the Muslims, and they had an army called
the raj Puts. I think that's as good as any
(12:16):
or as the the j silent are a Jput No,
uh No, It's like Maharaja maybe, yeah, that sounds better, uh,
and they defeated the army. Um, I'm sorry, they were
defeated and then taking captive and then another group from
Persia came along the se and they conquered them and
(12:36):
then took the raj Puts out of Northern India and
into what is now Turkey, right, and they basically the
DSPOR has started then supposedly, yeah, that was where they
think the Romani originally came from. They were displaced Indians
fighting to protect their homeland. And they basically when they
were ejected from uh, Northern India, Yeah, by Mohammed of
(13:02):
Gosni and his people, they became slaves. And then when
Mohammed of Gosney was defeated by the Celjics, they became
slaves for the Celjics. Turkey pretty much put upon from
the get go, right, So they were slaves, servant class
um laborers for many centuries and they finally made it out.
(13:22):
I guess once the um. Once the Ottomans defeated, Now
what's the Christians? I guess when in during the Crusades
and defeated the Turks and Istan Bull was converted from
Constantinople the um Rajputs, who were by now the Roma,
(13:43):
were moved from Turkey across the Balkans into present day
Transylvania Wallachia, and a large number of them were purchased
by Vlad dreck Cool, also known as Lad Tepish or
Vlad the Impaler or Count Dracula. He owned some of
the first Romani people. How many across I think like
(14:05):
five hundred or five thousands or something like that. Yeah,
and they suffered tremendously. Anyone who worked for Vaude suffered tremendously. Well,
lets to do an episode on him. He hated dust
on the shelves. He did, may fly into a rage. Um.
It's interesting, though to see their religion these days of Roma,
like it's it's kind of all over the map. There
(14:26):
are some Christians, um, there are some Muslims, right, and
some Hindu. I don't know. Yeah, I think there's not
like a a single religion for for an ethnic group. Well,
I guess it's not the weirdest thing. Well no, but
I mean I think what what happened was there was
a group of them, and then the group became further
(14:46):
and further fragmented, and so you can take all of
the language and the religious police and all of this
this stuff that is Romani culture, and you're probably gonna
find some similar elements that you can all trace back
to about at a d when they crossed over into
the Balkans and then started to spread from there. Yeah,
but I think that makes a lot of sense though,
(15:07):
because apparently even the tribes today speak different versions of
the same language. So it's they don't have like a
codified language, even though they're pushing for that, right they are,
they think that might help. So they're in Romania right
what's now present day Romania, UM, And for the next
four hundred years they are slaves in Romania until Romania
(15:29):
abolishes slavery, and even now that's still that basically their
home base. Romania is like, okay, we'll take care of
you guys, sorry about the last four centuries, UM, And
no one else in the EU will. But Romania does
provide for their Romani population more than any other country there.
But they were subjugated there too, weren't they, or at
(15:50):
least discriminated against. Yeah, there were slaves for four years
they well, I mean after that though, weren't they like
they had a hard time they weren't served in stores,
and oh yes, it still goes on today in Romania. Okay,
I thought they were a little like more accepting. No,
I think that's like kind of them. I think that's
the That doesn't mean that Romania is just like um
(16:12):
Roma loving, right, They're just they treat them slightly less
badly than the rest of your slight Roma tolerant. Okay,
let's settle on that. Um. But because of the fact
that they weren't um allowed service in stores and that
maybe they had low literacy and they couldn't get jobs,
no one wants to hire them. It was sort of
(16:33):
this cyclical thing where they had to resort to thievery
and deception. And it's just how do you get build
yourself up as a people when you can't work. You
still need to eat, So how do you eat? You
maybe steal something, and so it's just sort of the
constant cycle that to this day they haven't been able
to break out of. You know, Yeah, it's it's kind
(16:55):
of a self perpetuating thing. Like they have a bad
reputation in part because they do behave badly, and they
behave badly in part because they have a bad reputation,
so they can't get lag up like thousands of years.
It's it's unbelievable. Yeah, and there's I think one of
the probably the hallmarks of um Romanic culture is it's um.
(17:16):
It just won't assimilate. Like they just don't assimilate into
whatever culture there and their their visitors, their guests there
um or parasites or leeches depending on you know where
you live and how you feel about them. Um, but
they are not interested in becoming part of your culture
where you live. Yeah, they seem pretty private and like
(17:39):
only concerned about their tribe, right. And the thing is
the problem with that is that tends to make the
majority of a culture very nervous. Yeah, well, why aren't
you like eating our liberty cabbage and freedom fries? Like
what's your problem? Well, you know, I bet they love cabbage. Well, like,
why why don't you want to like work nine to five?
(18:01):
And you know that kind of stuff. So when when
any group won't assimilate and exists on the fringes seemingly,
you know, by their own accord, that's UM. That definitely
raises a lot of suspicion in the majority culture. Unless
you live in Montana, yeah, it's true, so maybe they
play well, there have friends in Montana. They know I'm kidding.
(18:25):
So right for this message break, we're going to talk
about some of the atrocities they suffered during World War two. Yeah, alright,
it's World War two. The Nazis are doing their thing,
and they are not just persecuting Jewish people, they are
persecuting anyone that is a minority that they don't agree with.
(18:46):
In the Roma were some of the first ones that
they targeted, and by um what's the word, by percentage
or of their total population maybe even suffered more than
the Jewish people as far as like like half of
the Roman people or something were executed. I think it
(19:06):
was half of a million were in Germany or in
the in the lands that Germany conquered. Yeah, and they
you know, they were. There's a documentary apparently out and
I read an article on it, but they didn't even
give the name of it. But it's uh, these filmmakers
in Toronto, Jewish filmmakers made a documentary about um, the
(19:26):
Romani Holocaust because it's just not a story you ever hear.
But the filmmakers Tom Raski and Lynn Binder, like I said,
we're Jewish Holocaust survivors, children of Holocaust survivors. And the
director and uh them Roma musician actually helped make it
so they are still the musical people, not just the
Gypsy kings. And we said, we don't know the name
(19:48):
of the documentary. I couldn't find. It's a terrible article.
It was terrible. Um. So, Yeah, during World War Two,
the Roma and the Jews were the only two ethnic
groups that were targeted because of their ethnicity by the Nazis.
Um And yeah, they suffered tremendously. And they have a
word for it, um. It means the great devouring. It's
(20:10):
a poor amos port amos. Yeah, it means the great devouring. Yeah.
It could also mean rape apparently, which kind of puts
a button on that experience. Uh. And I didtle more
reading about it too. Apparently they really annoyed the s
S as well, because they would not go quietly like
(20:31):
they would say. They would have them dig their own graves,
stand naked in front of them just so they could
chew them and push them in. And uh, he said
that they wouldn't just stand there and like take their
death gracefully. They would yell and scream and run around
and try and dodge bullets, and I guess it was
pretty sensible. Well yeah, exactly, but I guess that's part
(20:51):
of the you know, the survivor in them, because they've
been booted all around. You know, they gotta do what
they can. So like this guy's pointing a gun at me,
I'm gonna try and get out of here, even if
I'm naked, sad, And the rest of the majority of
culture was like, no, you just stand still, right, what's
wrong with you? Unbelievable. So one of the more shameful
(21:14):
but also telling things about the Roma Holocaust was the
way it was treated afterwards. It was basically unmentioned at
the Nuremberg trials, um, which you know, we're to address
the Holocaust as a whole, you know, and just kind
of ignored like this one whole thing because well it
(21:35):
was the Roma apparently. And then, uh, one s S
officer in history has was ever persecuted or prosecuted for
crimes against Roma during World War Two, just one person,
even though half a million Roma died. So why, my friend,
we I don't think we posted the question, Uh, why
(21:57):
did they think they came from eagypt To begin with oh, yeah,
well apparently it was just a complete accident. Yeah. Well, um,
they came from northern India originally, and a lot of
Roma have a dark complexion um and look the part
maybe a little to uh to an untrained eye. Um.
(22:17):
And they ended up settling in the Greek Isles for
a little bit or some at some point some Roma
did and around there the place where they settled, there
was a place where they came from along the Adriatic
had been known as Little Egypt. To the people in
Peloponnesia thought oh, well, they're Egyptians, so they started calling
(22:39):
them gypsies clearly because they live in Little Egypt and
they have dark complexions. That's interesting. So what about these days?
It's interesting history. But these days they still, like we said,
have a lot of are still musicians. A lot of
them still uh pick up camp and move. Some of
them still trade horses. Uh. They're known for being metal
(23:00):
workers and uh, well a lot of them have trades
that were learned as slaves in Romania that have been
passed down and are still practiced today. So like, for example,
some group that was that were copper workers as slaves
in Romania. Their ancestors were the groups today do scrap metal.
(23:22):
That's what they deal with, so they know what they're
doing with with metal. Like, there're a lot of the
trades that a Roma clan does for a living. Yeah,
um is passed down from their their days of slaves
in Romania. Yeah, and the fact that they're still musicians
today is definitely one of those because they found they
could make a few bucks by even appearing trying to
(23:43):
appear more exotic and do performances and look at us
where the weird exotic Roman people or the Gypsies. Look
how colorful our clothes are exactly And I'm playing my
finger tambourine while you're getting your pocket picked perhaps out.
That's that's something that happened. So was it? Because apparently
(24:04):
the media is totally cool with just perpetuating lies and
untruths about the Roma and as not to be trusted
anymore than they purport. The Roma should shouldn't be the
media the media reports like um. I read that in
that article I read in The Guardian by Dr Finnesska,
(24:24):
the Auroma authority, she points out that I want some
British paper said that a Roma woman who they named
like by name named her son Lucifer, which is apparently
wholly untrue. But this is in like the nineties that
that papers were printing this, So apparently the Roma have
(24:45):
always been this group that you can kick around and
everybody's cool with basically with you kicking him around. So
media reports of the stuff that they do are should
be taken with a grain of salt. Yeah, I think so,
because they're very often conflated. Yeah, but the point this
article makes, this is by Kristen Konger of Stuff Mom
Never Told You. She does make the point that a
(25:06):
lot of it is reputation, but a lot of it
has earned reputation because again, they were kind of force
from town to town, and they were poverty stricken, and
so they may have had to pick some pockets here
and there to put food in the mouths. You know,
I'm just saying, don't read, don't believe everything you're read
in the papers. Um. Sociologically speaking, the EurOMA constitute what's
(25:28):
called the middleman minority, which is a group that refuses
to assimilate UM and but still it is discriminated against,
but still maintains enough UM communication or contact with the
larger culture that they can benefit economically from that, Like
they can still sell you a car, trade you a car. Uh.
(25:51):
They're paternalistic, so it's um super old school, like the
women are expected to stay home and work the else
and the men may or may not work at all. Uh.
Young girls, they still have arranged marriages even to this day. Um.
Getting their daughters matched up with another another person of
the Romanic cultures is important to them. And apparently teenagers
(26:15):
as well. Yeah, like as young as twelve. It's a
little weird, is that right? Yeah? Um, and they because
of the literacy rate. I think it's especially hard on
young women. They don't care very much about educating them, right. Um.
And then employment is just kind of a side thing
(26:36):
you do when you need money. For the most part.
Part of that is that's just kind of part of
Romani culture. But it asks the question, uh, you know,
do they is that part of Romani culture because they
haven't been able to get a job, or do they
just not work? And that's part of Romani culture, right?
You know, which which side of the coin has actually
(26:56):
created this this situation. But they apparently we're giving jobs
under communism in Eastern Europe. Uh, and went to work
in factories and things like that for a little while,
but then after Communism disintegrated, the the Romo were fired.
First apparently they were the persones out the door. Yeah,
(27:17):
they're like the bosses no longer the boss. You're fired.
I'm firing you. Yeah. And then of course from that
rose more complaints of stealing and thievery and uh a
lot of it too. Isn't just uh illegal activities, but
a lot of begging and panhandling and stuff that apparently
in cheek districts in Paris is unsightly. So it sounds
(27:39):
like from this description that Romani women are they do
almost all of the work, especially around the household. They do,
and then men may or may not even have jobs. Yeah,
but they're they're these they do existing clans, and these
clans do have tribunals to handle disputes, and the men
kind of run all that off, like the government of
(28:02):
the of the village or group. Yeah, whereas the women
are like running the household stuff. But the men are
apparently totally clearly dominant. Yeah. Ah, I think that's true.
And unless it's just something we read, that's not because
I read one of the filmmakers for that documentary said,
you know, we're told that they aren't even that nomadic anymore.
(28:25):
I'm like, but that flies in the face of everything
I've read so well, it's in this article as well.
It says like a lot of them want to settle
down and are trying to make um, trying to establish
roots in places, but they get kicked out eventually. I
think they fared pretty well here in the States apparently,
so I don't know about like, I'm not saying they're
(28:45):
they're rising to CEO positions or anything, but I think
they haven't been h like kicked around like they have
been in the EU at least. Well, America loves it's
traveling romanticize thing, you know, yeah, the the open road. Yeah, yes,
that kind of thing. So anybody who's on the open
(29:06):
road is you know, romanticized a little bit more here,
I think than in Europe. I think you're right, Um,
this this takes a toll though, all the all the
poverty and the moving around and the lack of education
is going to take a toll on on any ethnicity,
and it's definitely happening with the Romani because they apparently
(29:27):
um compared to similar populations in Slovakia, Ireland, Czech Republican
Bulgaria die about six to ten years earlier, and infant
mortality rates are double and triple of those in surrounding
ethnic groups, which is disturbing. Which you can say, oh,
that's right, Well, their poverty stricken. Uh, they don't eat
(29:48):
the most nutritious meals around because their poverty stricken. They
don't have easy access to healthcare. On the other side
of the coin, apparently, um, they also typically shunned um
local medicine in favor of their own medicine, which is
often homeopathic apparently. And so for example, tuberculosis is just
(30:11):
like a it's like a fatal disease, even though if
you step outside of camp into town, it's not right
if you just go to that hospital right there, yeah,
it's not Uh. Yeah, here's the illiteracy rate of romani
girls can't read. Yeah, and apparently most romantic kids have
(30:32):
either gender don't complete high school. So all of this,
the fact that they are poverty stricken, that they have
lower life expectancy, higher informortality rates, lower education, higher literacy rates,
it's tough to get a leg up, especially when the
entire world basically looks at you like you are never
(30:53):
to be trusted. Yeah, so what do you do? I
will tell you what you do after this tam break.
I'm dying to know a solution. Yeah, well, you know
it's it's a long run. We already talked about the solution.
But you organize, you get together and you say, hey,
we are this group of people. We um we have
(31:17):
a history, we have a past. Because Dr finnessca Isabella
Finnesska points out quite rightly, I think the easiest way
to dehumanize people is to strip them of any context,
any history, and that means that the Roma are right
for exploitation when it comes to that dehumanization, because they
(31:39):
really don't have a history. Like historians think maybe that
they came out of northern India thousand a thousand years ago.
They probably did, but it's not entirely confirmed. Right. Can
I read this quote by her? Yeah, it's like the
saddest thing I've ever read, and this is by Finesska.
The Roma have no heroes, no myths of origin of
(31:59):
a great liberation, of the founding of a nation, of
a promised land. And that's like pretty much puts the
Jerry on topic, right, since pretty much every other culture
on the planet does have that. It makes them appear shiftless, aimless, lazy,
like so lazy they don't even care about their own culture,
(32:20):
so how can anybody else care about their culture? Well, finally,
some Roma got together in the seventies and said, we're
gonna start being Roma Romani activists, Like we're misunderstood. And
I think from this interaction inside and out and the
separation between us and the rest of the world, there's
a this misunderstanding is creating some self prophecies, self fulfilling prophecies,
(32:45):
self perpetuating myths. And they got together and said, okay,
we come from Northern India, India. We want you to
sponsor like a congress, and they did in Yeah, it
was very awesome, the first World Romanic Congress. And uh
there were Romani from fourteen different countries and they picked
(33:06):
out a flag and an anthem, which just sounds so
weird that you would have to do that in the seventies.
I'll bet it's exuberant. I'm sure it was. And um
oh you think, I'll bet the Gypsy can can play
it really well and it probably sounds like Beirut, you
know that band. He sounds like yeah, um m, yeah,
(33:32):
uh so it was. You know, it was a big
unifying moment and a rare unifying moment for the people
in and because they had the sponsorship of India though
uh the u N had to they had to maybe
they really wanted to officially recognized them as an ethnic
(33:53):
group in So that was a victory seven years later. Yeah,
wouldn't you say, well, what's um, what's sad though? Is it?
I guess the one of the more prevalent proposals for
getting Romani like a leg up is for them to
assault assimilate culturally. Apparently nothing's ever really going to change
(34:17):
until they are willing to assimilate culturally. Um. And that's
kind of like the crux of the matter. The problem
is is if if you, um, if you you start
to assimilate, you lose your culture. Yeah, which is happening somewhat.
You know. They they're already having a hard time holding
onto their dialect because of its fractured nature with the
(34:39):
different tribes. But like you said, assimilation it's a bit
of a sad thing, you know, let go of your
own past that's already checkered. So uh, I don't know,
that would that mean the end of the Romani. Well,
I mean you you can also make the case that,
you know, the Chinese have been um uh middlemen might
(34:59):
no already, Jewish people have been middleman minority in different places.
Um Any group that comes to a new place and
settles and then just kind of maintains its ethnic identity
for a while is a middleman minority. And you can
look around and say, well, you know, Chinese have assimilated
(35:21):
into the US pretty fully, but you still understand there's
such a thing as you know, Chinese ethnic and cultural
identity not dead Chinatown in most major cities. So I
don't know, maybe they'll be like Romani Town in San
Francisco a hundred years from now. In San Francisco, the
president will be Romani. You know, you know who knows,
(35:44):
But it won't happen apparently, I guess that's the best.
That's the the deal that's on the table. Yeah, we'll
take care of you, but you have to stop being
outside fringe dwelling weirdos. Well and until there, like this
whole Paris deal. That the reason why they're shuffling him
out of this one district, it's because they were shuffled
out of another district. That's yeah. And it happens on
(36:04):
a macro scale as well. Yeah, like not just within
the city, within Europe as a whole. Well, and one
of the I can't remember the ladies name, but one
of the French UM bureaucrats said, we we we just
need to get them back to where they came from,
back to Romania. Oh well yeah, it's like really he
just said that, you know. Yeah. Well, plus also shows
(36:25):
a little bit of historic I literacy. Um, but do
you want to talk about other terms for him depending
on where they are. So in the UK they call
him travelers. Uh. In Rome and Spain they're called gitanas,
So the Gypsy Gypsy Kings are technically gaitanas. Um. Let's see.
(36:47):
In Germany and Italy they call him Sinto. I can't
believe I thought the Gypsy Kings were from Mexico. That's
pretty ignorant. No, No, I think most people thought that.
Who aren't like into world music, you know? But I
heard of the Gypsy Kings or whatever. You know, it's
they see they play huge guitars. Okay, thank you, you
know I'm with you on now. I just didn't want
to be the white guy. It's like their Mexican right.
(37:09):
I don't think it's like that. Uh so that's the
Gypsy Kings. You got anything else on gypsies on Roma? Man?
I'm sorry, I know, but the title of the article
is how Gypsies work. And I think it'll attract listeners
because people. I don't think a lot of people understand
what the heck it is. I didn't what Roma. Well,
(37:31):
it makes you think, like, well, they're from Rome. Yeah, Romania. No,
I wonder if that means that Romania is from Rome.
This is one of the more confusing episodes we've done.
As it turns out, if you want to learn more
about the Roma or Romani, don't take those words. Type
gypsy into the search bar at house to works dot
com and it will bring up this article. And I said,
(37:52):
search bars means it's time for listener mail. Uh. This
is a question post to us from Josh Roberts of Washington,
d C. Hey, guys, I'm a big fan. I found
the podcast last year and downloaded a few episodes, but
it caught my interests and ended up going back to
the beginning and I've listened to every episode on iTunes. Josh,
(38:13):
I don't know if you know this, but we have
a lot more episodes than that, my friend, Yeah, I
know that. Are you talking to just the Josh Roberts,
it's not Josh Clark. Yeah. We have a whole page
now with all of our episodes on our website that
stuff dot com. iTunes features the most recent three one episodes. Yeah,
and we have like six d and thirty something episodes.
(38:33):
So he may know that, but maybe not go back
on list of the old ones that they're pretty funny.
There is some good ones in there, not the real
old ones, but you know, after maybe fifty they really
started to get good, talking so fast and like it's
it's a total jackass. And we left the cave that
we recorded in the can uh Okay. So he's writing
(38:56):
because he has an important question to ask. Imagine that
time travel is real, and you and go to any
time place in all of history, and you could bring
one thing with you. My question is where would you
go and what would you bring. I've been asking people
this question since I was sixteen. Now I'm forty two
years old, and I've had many interesting and some disturbing
answers about our money making ploys like the old back
(39:20):
to the future, bringing a sports almanac. Many people talk
about going back to Mozart Beethoven's time to bring and
bringing a recording device, and then of course, other notable
answers include shooting Hitler, stopping the murder of JFK. R.
M Olk. My favorite answer is going back to the
late fourteen hundreds with a battleship and making sure the
(39:40):
Europeans never reached the America's Yeah, so we have to
answer this now. My question to Josh Roberts is is
this something that are you gonna go come back to
present daytime? Because you know, what good would it go
due to go record Beethoven if you're stuck there or
the recording of Beethoven there's a caveat so if you
(40:02):
can come back to present daytime. I've thought about this,
I haven't had the benefit of thinking. Just keep thinking.
I think I might go back to the time of
Jesus and biblical times because well documented my constant struggle
with my religious upbringing over the years. He's going and
I'm gonna go to the source, and I'm taking a
(40:24):
video camera with unlimited amounts of you know, recording space,
let's say, yeah, a bunch of them and I can
bring this back, And I think it would I think
it would delight everyone. I think Christians would be delighted
because you have real footage of a sermon on the
mount and these I think delighted might be understating the
reaction you would get. It would be over the moon
(40:46):
about having original recordings of Jesus doing this thing. I
would think so. And I think it would also be
helpful to just sort of sort out what the deal
was and uh say, you know what are these stories
out glory? Are they? Did they really happen? Am I
going to go back and see people walking on the
water and come back and say, hey, you know what,
(41:08):
it's all absolutely true everyone. I think it would be
like the greatest discovery and religion that has had such
an impact on world history. So that's my boom, That's
what I'm doing. That's a good one. Thanks. Um. Uh.
Let's see, I should have sent this to you ahead
of time. I feel bad for springing it on you. Well,
(41:28):
I'll just give a cursory one. I would I would
go to um. I would go to probably some place
that's kind of an exotic locale, now, but like sixty
years ago when it was super exotic. Not so. I
would say, you know what, I would go to, like um,
(41:52):
Polynesia or Cuba. Yeah, in okay, and I realized they
were nowhere near the same thing. But I would go
to I would go to Cuba in nine and the
thing I would take would be interesting. So you just
go for a vacation forever vacation. Yeah all right. See,
(42:13):
I would recommend you go back even further to Cuba
before there was anyone there with like a big gun,
and then you own Cuba. I don't want to own Cuba.
And like I like the local flavor, you know what
I mean, Like I like the local flavor. That's like
not been Uh there's not like an old navy anywhere
near this local flavor. It's like, gotcha, totally local flavor.
(42:36):
But they also have you know, mohitos already. Okay, So
you would go get away from the things of man
back in the day with your wife where they have
alcohol served. Yes, it's a great answer. Thanks. I love it.
It was off the cuff and just I can just
picture you and you me kicking it in nineteen twenty
and Cuba, Cuba. Yeah, very one of those shirts to
(43:00):
be one of those guys who were Cuban shirts. Yeah,
what are those called the Cuban shirts? Yeah, there's noth name.
I can't remember. I'm sure it's like the Cruiseware right, yeah,
but with two pockets and the unnecessary seams and there's
the same somewhere. John Hodgman and Jesse Thorner a going
we can't hear you all right, Well that was it
for Romani. If you want to hang out with me
(43:22):
and Chuck outside of this podcast, you can. You can
find us on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook. You can just
look up Stuff you Should Know s Y, s K,
Josh and Chuck on your favorite web browser. We're gonna
bring up all that stuff. You can send us an
email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and hang
out with us on our website Stuff you Should Know
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(43:49):
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