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Poland Gypsies
The Gypsies (Rom, in the preferred vernacular term), a
major
sociopolitical issue in most other East European
countries, are
much less numerous and less controversial in Poland.
Estimates of
the Gypsy population in Poland range from 15,000 to
50,000.
Czechoslovakia's Gypsy population, by contrast, numbered
500,000
in the 1980s, when Poland became a transit point on the
illegal
migration route from Romania to Germany. Emigration of
Polish
Gypsies to Germany in the late 1980s reduced Poland's
Gypsy
population by as much as 75 percent. Nevertheless,
negative
stereotypes remain strong in Polish society, and acts of
violence
and discrimination against this most visible minority are
common
in Poland. In 1991 a mob destroyed a wealthy Gypsy
neighborhood
in central Poland. The Polish governments has adopted no
comprehensive policy on Gypsies byt instead had treated
violent
acts against them as isolated incidents.
Data as of October 1992
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