I hope I was not misinterpreted, I didn't mean to say they are thieves ever since they migrated to Eastern Europe, but their lifestyle back then lead to what they are today. They liked living freely, moving from one place to another, not being bound by anything or anybody. Illegality was in their spirit, in their blood so to speak, but not at the magnitude that it is today. They had to make a living in ways that did not include holding a job or working the land. They lived in wagons and tee-pees, they moved a lot and they were good copper-smiths and traders. Some women called themselves fortune tellers (or witches) and made nice money off people who believed in them. There are even Romanian songs about gypsies and their lifestyle (how they used to be back in the day), that depict them pretty well. There are movies (some in gypsy) about their old lifestyle too. But that changed. I guess one of the hardest time they had was under communism, because they had to work or they would go to prison. It was a condition for everybody, not just for gypsies. You'd say that was good, so we thought! But that didn't have the effect everybody was hoping for. I guess the desired effect was that they will finally integrate into our society. What actually happened was: some sneaked out of the country searching for asylum in Western Countries that were anti-communism. There, they started stealing and begging. The business flourished, when they could finally come home (after dec 22 '89), they build nice big houses with the money they got and the rumor spread out. More and more gypsies went abroad to do the same thing. It didn't become such a big problem until after Romania became part of the EU. When the customs opened their gates, hundreds of them went West. And what you saw in that documentary is what they do. Yes, they exploit their own children, the kids learn the lifestyle and do the same thing to their children. They kidnap our children to exploit them. Not many of them accept social services help and the ones that do, many times get thrown out because they cannot stop exploiting their children. They get food, shelter, education, work skills training, but they still send their children to beg. Why? Is beyond me, I cannot understand them. We cannot help them if they do not want to be helped. They don't have pity for us, but expect pity from us. They have no conscience or respect, but demand respect from us. They want help only on their terms, they don't want to work. The ones who want to work, they do have jobs, real jobs. The ones who want their kids to have an education, they send their children to school. There's no real solution to their situation. And they are multiplying fast! By mid thirties, a gypsy woman would have at least 5 children if she is healthy and would already be a grandma'.
And as I mentioned already, there are those who work, who usually do not declare their ethnicity during censuses (thus very few gypsies are registered as working). There are those who lead a normal life by trading (though not a legal paying taxes job, nonetheless a continuation of their traditions that we respect). There are those who are in the business of fortune telling and even though they are very prosperous, they deny being subject to taxes (again, not such a big issue, they've been doing this ever since they migrated to our country). There are those who represent them politically and have salaries paid by taxpayers. There's their king, who I have no idea how he makes his money, how he is elected and how that works out for them. And there are those who live at the margins of our society, together with white folks who are poor and barely make ends meet. But the majority of them are involved in this "business" of begging/stealing and loan sharking, which is cruel, but nonetheless the reality and I don't think anybody can point their fingers at us and say that we pushed them towards that. Communism was hard for everybody, but you don't see our white folks living in campgrounds, stealing from westerners and exploiting their children. And they were subject to the same exact rules as the gypsies were.
