Gypsy Magic

Author’s Note

Author’s NoteI became interested in gypsies in 1960 when I found that they were unjustly treated in being moved every twenty-four hours so it was impossible for gypsy children to go to school. After a bitter battle which took three years, I eventually got the law altered so that local authorities were obliged to provide camps for their own gypsies.

Now in Hertfordshire there are eight County Council camps and my own, which is, I believe, the only entirely Romany gypsy camp in the world and which the gypsies themselves christened ‘Barbaraville’.

I have learnt in my dealings with the Romany gypsies how extremely moral they are and how they marry for life.

Romany gypsies are very secretive about their beliefs, customs and even their language so that the little that has been written about them is often untrue.

They have suffered terrible persecutions in every country in Europe. Beginning in 1939, Germany started their internment with the aim of their entire extinction. More than 400,000 gypsies lost their lives under the Nazis before the end of the Second World War.

Today most countries are following our lead and trying to find some way in which the gypsy children can be educated.

The Kalderash gypsies believe they are the only authentic gypsies. They came from the Balkans, then from Central Europe and are divided into five groups,

Lovari in France called Hungarians.

Boyhas who come from Transylvania.

Luri (or Lult) the Indian tribe.

Tschurari (Chruai) who live apart from the other Kaldarash gypsies.

Tutco-Americans who emigrated from Turkey to the United States before returning to Europe.