New York Times, April 3, 2000
The Gypsies of Slovakia: Despised and Despairing
By STEVEN ERLANGER
RUDNANY, Slovakia -- Darina Horvathova, 23, lives with her baby on the
crumbling remains of an abandoned iron and mercury mine, without a husband,
a job or indoor plumbing. The soil, under the mounds of uncollected trash,
is known to be contaminated. But 500 Gypsies, or Roma as they are also
known, live here in sickness and squalor in the shadow of a factory shut
down when Communism died.
The factory itself is now nothing but a broken concrete shell, having been
dismantled for construction materials by the people here.
Some live in wooden sheds; some in crumbling, filthy structures built for
mineworkers in 1918. There is one water tap for the whole settlement, no
toilets and not a single garbage container.
"The government doesn't care about us at all," said Miss Horvathova,
standing in a path of oily mud and trash. "They could put down some pebbles
or pick up the garbage," she said. "Anything you put on is dirty
immediately. Is this life?"
Cyril and Petr Horvath, 26 and 23, both went to school, and Cyril trained
as a bricklayer. But neither has a job. In fact, no Gypsy here has a
regular job. "We want to work, but there is no work," said Cyril Horvath.
"When you show up, they take one look at you, and that's it. They take only
whites."
Worsening conditions for Gypsies throughout Eastern Europe have caused
thousands to try to emigrate, quickly wearing out any welcome from Western
Europe. Their flight has created new pressure, most recently in Britain, to
tighten visa, immigration and asylum rules to keep them out.
Alojz Dunka, 58, is the unofficial mayor of this settlement on the
outskirts of Rudnany, a town about seven miles east of Spisska Nova Ves, in
the mountains of northeast Slovakia. He worked at the mine, which was shut
down in 1992. "It was much better under Communism," he said. "Even with
discrimination, it was possible to live. Democracy has brought us nothing
but crisis."
Full article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/040300europe-gypsies.html
Louis Proyect
(The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
