The gypsies have a long ominous history in their journey of life. Originated from Central and North-Western India in between the fifth and twelfth centuries, today they number up to 30 millions. A third of them are living in Europe. Although they were vaguely thought to have come from Egypt —the word Gypsy comes from Egyptians or Gyptian; in Eastern and Central Europe they prefer to be called Roma; in Western Europe they are known as Manush and Sinti; and Spanish and Portuguese call them Gitanos. They have retained strong tribal and family loyalties and preserved systems of collective security which conflict with common European traditions, resulted them to be most deprived yet fastest growing ethnic minority.

In Hungary, their suffering dates back to 1476, when King Mathias authorized officials to employ Gypsies as slaves, to be scattered throughout his kingdom, often to labor as blacksmiths hammering out weapons and metal implements for torture. In 1721, their fate had not become better when local superstition considered them as vampires and cannibals. The Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl VI then ordered extermination of all Gypsies throughout his large empire. During World War II, as Gypsy historians claimed, an estimated 1.5 million Gypsies in Nazi-occupied Europe were executed.

In the past few decades, Hungary and most other European nations canceled racist laws against Gypsies. Communism however had a part in creating their still gloomy present, as the government outlawed the Gypsies’ nomadic existence for working at communist-run farms and factories. When freedom arrived as communism collapsed across East Europe in 1989, Gypsies suffered an upsurge in unemployment and racist violence. They were suddenly useless in a capitalist marketplace.

Professor Miklos Haraszti of the University of California’s Study Centre in Budapest said, “In Hungary, only 0.3 per cent of Roma hold post-secondary school diplomas and only one in four could complete primary school”. Their jobless rate is over 60 per cent—more than six times the Hungarian average; and their life expectancy is ten year less than the national average, to measure their economic and health condition. The educational gap between the Gypsies and the Hungarian ethnic majority has not narrowed over the past 40 years. And even today, only one in five Gypsy families could afford to send their children to secondary schools. No wonder that the victory of receiving an official diploma is considered a great success after having to go through a long hard struggle; whereas some of us could obtain the same honor twice at once with no trouble.

Krisztina Rostas is one among a few happy ending stories happen to the Roma. Being born in Miskolc twenty six years ago, she now lives in a tiny village called Arokto in northern Hungary where many Roma live in very poor conditions. Her mother is in a state-owned institution due to her mental illness. She has been living with her father and grandmother since she was very young.

She attended a grammar school in her youth but then failed to get into any secondary school for two reasons: She was born without one arm, and she did not have enough grades at grammar school. The latter is a common phenomenon for Roma students in Hungary. Krisztina however declined to give up. She applied to the bakery and dairy industry trade schools, but was rejected due to her disability. She thought of moving to Budapest to study in a gardening school for physically handicapped children there. With her father, she eventually came to visit the school, but it was no option. They could not afford for her to move to the city. Disappointed, she returned to home and tried her luck once again to find a job, to no avail. She then began to write letters to letters to foundations, high schools, technical schools, and trade schools. Most of them never even bothered to respond, and when they did, it was only to refuse her application.

The fourteen year old Krisztina afterwards visited those schools in person by hitch-hiking from one place to another. She talked to the directors, showed them the pile of letters she had sent, and those that she had received, all with the same message: “I am sorry to inform you that we are not able to accept your application.”

A common solution would be getting a job when one could not afford to go to school. In Krisztina’s case, it was almost impossible. She knew that, but instead of being idle, she went to the regional labor centers and tried to apply for a course. Of course there was no real possibility for her to ever become a dress- or shoe-maker with her one arm. Later she started a French language and accountancy correspondence course with the help of the labor center, and had to give it up for financial reason.

On September 12, 1995, the school year had already started, when she saw an advertisement for a preparatory course in the University of Miskolc which was still accepting applicants. Not wanting to let the chance slip away, the girl went to the university and asked to talk to the man who organized the course. She did not even know that one needs to graduate from high school before going to a university. The man said he could not admit her, of course, but after listening to her story, he promised to find her a job. That day she was very happy. The gentleman even gave her some money so she could by the bus ticket to go home.

In the bus, she met several students from Arokto who were traveling home from high school. They told her that there were still five open places in their school for new students. In her desperate effort, Krisztina decided to come to the school again, although so far she had been there twice already.

She talked to the director; begged him to listen for a few minutes. He was an elderly man with a strict look on his face. She repeated all she had always said. She told him that she wanted to study so much that she regretted all her bad grades on her grammar school. If only she were given the chance, she would be very diligent, she said. There were many things she would do in her life and how much she wanted to help others. She added, though, if her application was ever accepted, he should be aware that she was very poor that she could not afford to pay her own transportation to school.

All the while she was talking, the man looked through the pile of papers that she had brought. He did not even interrupt. When she finished, he just stared at her, “You do not have money, you do not have adequate grades, and you want to go to school?”

She explained that all she wanted was a single chance to try.

He stood up by this reply, went to the window and asked again, “Do you have any meetings for Monday?”

“No.”

“Do you have a bag?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you have enough money to come to school on Monday?”

“No.”

“Then you are in,” he said.

She goggled. Could not believe of what she had just heard, she could not even stand up from the seat for minutes. When she eventually left his office, he said: “Don’t forget to come to school on Monday!”

So school days were started, but her problems did not end there. During the first few days she was always late. In the first week, the history teacher asked the class “Who is this Krisztina Rostas who received the lowest grade on this easy test?” When Krisztina introduced herself, the teacher asked her why she was always late and never even bothered to take any notes during her classes.

She made up reasons that her bus was always late to school—which was a lie, since a classmate came with supposed to be the same bus and she testified never to see Krisztina there. Then she said that her father never got up early enough to cause her delay. But after a while she had to confess that she went to school by hitch-hiking. When she was lucky, she could arrive in school by 8. Otherwise, she would be late. She told the teacher that she was sorry, because she had no money to buy exercise book either.

The school then bought her exercise books and the director asked the municipality of Arokto to pay for her meals in school and a monthly bus ticket. The history teacher frequently brought food to school for her. The first year was very hard after she missed a year of studying and she had very bad grades.

Her financial state was no better. Her family’s income was 18,000 Forints—approximately US$ 90, barely enough for anything. She therefore started a part-time job for Melodiak, a company at the university that provides students with occasional jobs in Miskolc. She woke up at 03.15 in the morning so she could distribute newspapers before going to school. After returning from school at 13:30, she sold phone-subscriptions for the whole afternoon before going home to do the household works, as her grandmother was ill at that time. And in the evening she studied under the dim light of tatarka—a piece of cloth put in a spoonful of grease and lit—since the electricity in her house had already been turned off for so long after they could not pay the bills.

Fortunately there were always kindhearted people. Her history teacher later paid out her electricity bills. She also occasionally tutored Krisztina and prepared her for university. Her will to study was her key to success. In her third year of highs school, she received a scholarship from the Soros Foundation. After graduating in 1999, she managed to get into the faculty of social politics in a university in Budapest. She also worked at the Secretariat of the Department of Social Politics.

The Foundation for the Hungarian Roma—a non-governmental foundation that provides financial and professional support for Hungarian Roma students—then also gave her scholarship. She was able to take free English classes and had a personal tutor at the university. Today she is able to live and support her now ill father. Along her many activities, she always has some time to volunteer as a social worker. She began at the State Institute of Blind People to help adults and mentally disabled children.

She is aware that what had happened to her was an exception. There are more Roma who are not that fortunate. Therefore her desire now is to improve the situation of Roma people in society. It is a pity that discrimination towards Roma still exists nowadays, said her as she recalled her classmate’s experience. In Budapest, a Rom classmate applied for a dishwasher job at a fast-food restaurant. He was turned down and told that they did not need any more people. And they found out that half an hour later they hired another friend—a non-Rom student—for the same position. It is a pity that many people in Hungary do not trust a Rom college student to be good enough as a dishwasher. Claiming that education is the major issue, she hopes to help Roma people to earn people’s trust in the future. In her own words, she said, “It is frequently said that Roma do not want to work, that they are too lazy to work, and that is why they live in bad situations. I know that in my region there was no possibility to work, and if a company did hire a few people, they were not willing to take on Roma. Roma cannot take a valuable role in a society that considers them useless”.

This has been originally posted here on September 16, 2005