Evening Star Newspaper, August 15, 1937, Page 80

B ———— & CAREFREE AND SMILING, AT HOME ALMOST ANYWHERE ow that America’s highways are athrob with life in trailers, more and more city dwellers are coming in contact with those swarthy nomads who are the real Gypsies. Until houses on wheels began wandering over the countryside, these olive-skinned roamers were con- sidered the only knights errant of the road, eternal chasers of the rainbow. There are probably a hundred thousand of these real Gypsies in the United States today, traveling toward no- where in their decrepit cars. America’s trailer may be an intrusion on Gypsy privacy — but that is nothing compared to the crisis he is facing through- out the rest of the world. For almost everywhere in Europe the Gypsy is- fighting for his life — certainly for the life he has known for so many centuries. The civil war in Spain has hit Gypsies hard. Dictatorships everywhere have attempted to force them into a settled, routine, humdrum life. In the Soviet Union they are being settled on col- lective farms. So great is the pressure on them that in one town in Hungary they have been forced to take baths. No wonder Gypsies of the old school are fearing that all these ominous signs foretell an impending doom. Spain’s civil war is a tribal tragedy. The peninsula now torn by strife has been Gypsydom'’s favorite roaming ground for nearly five centuries. Back and forth across the frontier between France and Spain, the ‘“‘contrabandista,” the Gypsy smuggler, for years has plied his trade along mountain trails. Here and there along the border were frontier posts, where solemn-faced guards asked to see your passport and the con- tents cf your woven basket. But Gypsies had no commerce with frontier guards, and the trails they followed were watched only by the eagle. There the band of Carmen, immortalized in lore and opera, smuggled tobacco and olive oil past government vigilance. But this year the Franco-Spanish frontier has been under international control. Border patrols have kept an eye on the mountain range which separates peace from war, for fear that the “‘Little World War”’ might pass the barriers. The southern slope of the Pyrenees is a battlefield, and the passes have been occupied for more than a year now by forces of the Madrid government or by rebel troops. Has this spelled the doom of the Gypsy ‘‘contrabandista’? Has the spirit of Carmen been stilled? Have the Gypsy trails finally been closed to the knights of Nomady? The answer is an emphatic ‘‘no.”” The frontier today is prob- ably more alive with nomadic travel than ever before. No inter- national force knows as much about the formidable Pyrenees as does the Gypsy. Many Gypsies of Andalusia, the Basque country, Granada and Seville have taken the road toward the North, into France, the land of peace. Others are engaged in the illicit traffic of arms and men, if the charges of both factions in Spain’s civil war may be believed. “Gypsies are bad people,” the Spaniard complains, and yet, for centuries, he has lived side by side with them. Spain is a providential place for a persecuted race. Her mountains are ideal refuges, for the Sierras are full of natural fastnesses where only Gypsies and mountain goats can find their way. So strong were the Gypsies in their nomadic defiance of the law that at one time they carried on private wars against neigh- THIS WEEK boring villages and towns in Spain. “They are to be hunted down with fire and sword,” King Philip V an- nounced two centuries ago. But where they lived above the clouds? The sun of Andalusia lured them to the South, where the indifference of the natives gave them rest. They made a living by reading the palms of love-sick girls and assuring them of the affection of the local heroes of the bull ring. Here they preserved their language, customs and tribal habits. In Granada they lived in caves scooped out of the ra- vines. In Madrid they took temporary quarters where the horse traders gath- ered. And in some parts of the country the Gypsies were forced to retire to Gitanerias, “Jim Crow’ quarters. Su- perstitious peasants feared their way of life, and regarded them as the hench- men of the Devil. In the sun-scorched, poverty-stricken South of Spain, the Gypsies were the poorest of the poor, but they were never the unhappiest. So long as hunger did not stalk them, they were free from care. The women danced and told fortunes for trifling sums, and many of the tribesmen made a few pesetas a week as black- smiths in their run-down shacks on the village outskirts, desert- ing shop and business when the spirit moved them. Since the outbreak of the civil war the Gypsy trails through the Pyrenees must have seen strange sights. Loyalists and rebels accuse one another of smuggling in men and arms despite inter- national supervision. It is impossible to patrol a mountainous No Man’s Land all the way from the Atlantic to the Mediter- ranean, and the Gypsies know the passes where control is most difficult to maintain. Prospective volunteers are taken in hand by ex-tobacco smugglers and, if the moon is kind, then next night they will be bound for the armies they wish to join — and the leather satchels around Gypsy necks will be swelled with a handful of pesetas. Nor is Spain the Gypsy's only great problem. His position in the Germany of Hitler is becoming intolerable. About a year ago Berlin expelled its Gypsy musicians. And recently the Federation of German Farmers petitioned the government to drive out all Gypsies on the ground that they were not of Aryan blood. Yet the Gypsies may lay claim to be the only real Aryans, since their language is now fairly generally accepted as a derivative of Sanscrit. The prevailing view today is that they originally came from the foothills of the Himalaya range, the supposed cradle of what Hitlerites call the Aryan race. Europe’s nationalism has turned the frontiers into prison walls, which challenge the genius of a race of nomads. With four-fifths of Europe regi- mented under a dozen dictators, the Gypsies cannot hope to cherish their traditional freedom. Not only do they find it difficult to cross from one country to an- other, but Globe Photos GYPSY MADONNA: THIS PORTRAIT OF MOTHERHOOD IS LIKE SOME FINE OLD PAINTING IH could the royal wrath smite them, since Moagazine Section F GY P In Europe he is harried by war and regimentation. In America the trailer tourist is invading the privacy of the open road. Where can a Gypsy wander? by EmIL LENGYEL - their movements within the borders of many countries are restricted just as closely. A local official in the great plains of Hungary has issued a command that all male Gypsies must have their names tattooed upon their bodies so as to facilitate identification. The police had complained that Gypsies changed their names too often. A short time ago Cegled, Hungary, startled the world by introducing compulsory bathing for Gypsies. < Another Hungarian town — Diosgyor — is trying to get the same results with education, instead of force. A school has been started to teach the children of Nomady how to wash them- selves. There is a little theory — and a lot of practice. The teacher examines the necks and ears of the pupils, and if a trace of dirt is found, the young Gypsy must wash himself in the basin in the center of the classroom. Strange to say, Gypsy men and women have begun to take an interest in the school - and evening classes had to be started for them. And now visitors come from far away to see the only Gypsy night school in Hungary. Newspaper accounts tell of the fantastic dress worn by these ‘ Gypsies. Yet, though their shawls, blouses and skirts of rainbow hues dazzle outsiders, artists assert that the Gypsies are seldom guilty of mis-mating colors. 1 Hungaryv, incidentally, was the first country in Centra Europe that tried to settle the Gypsies. The attempt was made in the eighties of the last century by the late Archduke Joseph, . “the Hungarian Hapsburg."’ He set aside a tract of land on his estate beyond the Danube for these wanderers of the road. There he built huts for them, and furnished them simply but attractively. The Gypsies were moved to tears and kissed his hand. But a few days later the Archduke’s scouts reported that the Gypsies had disappeared; with them had gone the furniture, and even the thatched roofs of some of their houses. Perhaps Russia will have better luck with its program to improve the Gypsy mode of life. The Soviet regime is conducting a drive to settle all Gypsies on collective farms. Large tracts of land have been set aside for this purpose in the Volga Basin, in Turkestan, and on the southern slope of the Caucasus. An ex- perimental farm is in operation in the Crimea. Teachers of farming are training promising Gypsy youngsters in the use of up-to-date agricultural machinery. The best pupils will become leaders of their people as managers of collective farms. The Soviet propaganda machine has swung into action to turn the tribes of wanderers to sed- entary occupations. One of the most popular Russian films of last year showed how a group of dusky nomads had changed to typical peasant life. The safety of a shelter and the assurance of a livelihood are the arguments which Russia is using to turn the ex-roamers of the Romany trail into average citizens. A Gvpsy Institute has been set up, and, under