The Oxford English Dictionary defines nation as “a distinct race or people, characterized by common descent, language or history, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory.” Nationalism in turn may be defined as a sense of identity as a people, and the efforts resulting to foster this and to obtain recognition as a distinct population, bound by common historical, cultural, linguistic, political, religious or other ties in the eyes of the larger society.

While in the broadest sense the term “nation” may apply to a non-politically autonomous ethnic group consisting of only a few hundred individuals (cf. the West African or Native American use of the word as an equivalent to “tribe”), it is most often used synonymously with the notion of an actual country, the existence of an independent geographical homeland being an integral part of its interpretation. However, as the dictionary definition indicates, this is usually, and therefore by implication not invariably, a defining criterion. There have been nations of people lacking a homeland (or a homeland allowing them access or control) throughout history. The pre-1948 Jewish population, for example, or the Palestinians in the present day. Bloody wars have been fought because of the existence of nations of people lacking their own autonomous territory.

It is into this latter category that the Romani nation fits and, though the efforts to secure a geographical homeland were central to the nationalist movement, especially during the 1930s and 1940s, the price paid for not having one has been heavy.

The 1952 edition of the Dictionary of the Czech Language defines “gypsy” as follows: “gypsy [with a small “g”]—a member of a wandering nation, a symbol of mendacity, theft, wandering,…jokers, liars, impostors and cheaters.” This definition was published two years after the Czechoslovak government outlawed any form of discrimination on the basis of color. As far as this writer recalls, the above definition expressed the popular understanding of the Gypsies as a group in the 1930s, in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia. Despite the persecution of the Gypsies during the war and the popular sympathy for them because of it, the prejudice against them have not disappeared and one can find its reflection in the official press as well as in conversations of the common people. Although one cannot generalize about members of any racial, national or religious group, it is evident from the official publications that most Gypsies pose certain problems for the regime and the society.

There have been Roma or Gypsies in Hungary for over 650 years. Historical records indicate that they entered Hungary between 1416 and 1417 from Transylvania during the reign of King Sigismund (1387–1437), though linguistic evidence indicates that they had begun to settle there earlier. In 1423, Sigismund granted the Gypsy leader, Ladislas, and his followers, certain rights of transit, and they began to flock to Hungary. Most settled in the outskirts of villages or towns, and became prominent in some parts of the country as blacksmiths.

From the outset, the Gypsies were subjected to varying degrees of discrimination. In the 18th century, Empress Maria Theresa (1740–1780), after Pope Clement XIII granted her the right to become Apostolic ruler of Hungary, adopted policies designed to force the Roma to assimilate into Hungarian society. She outlawed use of the word Cigány and decreed that Gypsies in the future be called “new citizen,” “new peasant,” or “new Hungarian.” In 1780, the government placed 8,388 Roma children in schools where they became wards of the state, and another 9,463 in foster homes. Within a few years, all of them had run away from these institutions or the families. The Gypsies responded with some outbreaks of violence in certain areas, though in most instances they simply left Hungary for other parts of Europe.

In discussion of ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe, one hears regularly of appalling official misbehavior—not just about attempted genocide (though that too), but also about bureaucratic cruelties inflicted in every field of human activity and at every level of control. Nonetheless, it is always useful to have a measurable basis for assessing unfairness; and historians have the special task of inquiring rationally why and how unfairness came about. Hence the following paper, which attempts not just to condemn, but to explain and evaluate the Hungarian and Czechoslovak official treatment of the Gypsies in recent decades. As is fairly well known, this treatment has included not only harassment of populations which presently exceed 600,000 people in each country, but also (in both countries) systematic abduction of children by the state from unwilling Gypsy parents, and (in Czechoslovakia) equally systematic sterilization of Gypsy women.

Since the point of the paper is to reach beyond mere indictment, I will use a comparative method. Specifically, in recounting each stage of the development of policy towards the Gypsies I will compare what was being done to two other groups: the Jews, on the one hand, and the physically disabled on the other.

Gypsies are one of the most famous though least known national minorities, representatives of which can be found in many countries. Several works have been written about them but no analysis has yet been made of the interrelationship between Gypsies and the nationalities among whom they live. An analysis of this kind is timely in that it would give governments a means with which to alleviate ethnic tensions by amending their present faulty nationality minority policies.

The author of this article has recently made a detailed sociological study by means of a lengthy questionnaire of the attitudes of various nationality groups towards each other in Ukraine. Included in it are questions either directly or indirectly relating to the Gypsies. This ethnic group, despite its relatively small size, is well known throughout Ukraine. Gypsies stand out from the rest of the population by their way of life and by their appearance; as a rule, they speak their own language, even though they know the languages of other nationalities. Most of the population of Ukraine comes in contact with Gypsies, though most often with their worst representatives (swindlers, extortionists, etc.). They meet these Gypsies in the most populous places—at railroad stations, outside large stores, and in marketplaces.

The Moscow Teatr “Romen,” dating back to 1931, is famous throughout the Soviet Union, and its performers have been some of the country's best-known. The Teatr “Romen” connects Roma from all over the country, and many who work there are related; three generations of a family may appear on the stage at one time. These families, along with Roma working as professionals, make up an lite within the Romani community in Moscow. They are the most outwardly assimilated (wearing European dress, etc.), most fluent and literate in Russian as well as Romani. These families usually move in different spheres than do Roma who live in villages around Moscow and work in cooperatives or as independent merchants, although extended family networks may include Roma of all spheres. Most studies of Gypsies (including those of non-Roma, such as Irish Travellers in the United Kingdom) assume a certain homogeneity of culture and of class:

The Teatr “Romen” is a case that demands such acknowledgment. Yet, in a sense, these élite performers are doubly marginal, both as performers and as ethnic outsiders who “threaten the rhetoric and narratives of nationalism.” Currently in the USSR, such narratives are in flux, as many national minorities demand greater cultural and political autonomy. Roma, however, are not demanding their own republic, and requests for schools and radio shows are often tempered by the assertion that, “this country has been kind to Gypsies.” Roma élites are also in a peculiar position: charged with representing Roma to outsiders, they are also concerned about maintaining the integrity of the urban community as Roma. Because of this, they must negotiate the interstitial area between cultures.

The Nazi assault on Gypsies as an undesirable group was launched in the first months of the Third Reich. By the end of 1933, the outlines of a policy of total removal and, if possible, extinction were in place. Over the course of the first year of Hitler's rule, Gypsies had been numbered among those destined for mass sterilization. The goal of preventing their propagation had been pronounced on July 14 when the new cabinet issued a statement (with the force of law) proclaiming the concept of Lebensunwertesleben—life unworthy of living—a category of person that, at the time, specifically and indiscriminately included and embraced all Gypsies. Shortly thereafter, exploratory contacts were made with the League of Nations to assess the practicability of allocating one or two Polynesian islands to which the Gypsies could be deported. By September 1933, the Ministry of Interior announced a more realizable preliminary plan to arrest persons with no fixed and permanent addresses (i.e. primarily Gypsies) and to incarcerate them in special detention camps as a means of removing them from the mainstream of society. There the Gypsies would be rendered preemptively criminally harmless, (since they were described as a potential detriment to the general German population), and biologically “futureless” (zukunftloss) by way of mass sterilization.

In retrospect, the central ingredients for a formula of genocide, for the complete extermination of the Gypsies, were all in place: an ideology which deprived them of the basic right to life; a process of law by edict, which subjected them to totalitarian rule; a hypothetical plan to deport them abroad, and a more concrete one to isolate them from the citizenry, by segregating them in prison-like compounds, deprived of all civil rights; and a technology of physical mutilation that would deny them progeny and a link with a biological future, by literally destroying the unconceived next generation. Thus, a skeletal blueprint for the genocide of Gypsies by the racial architects of the Nazi regime had been drawn up by the end of 1933 well before the first Gypsies in Germany were rounded up in January 1934.