Posted on 11/14/2021 6:07:14 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
On November 14 and 15, 1726, more than 20 Gypsy outlaws of Hesse-Darmstadt were executed en masse.
Gypsies in Europe still suffer ample discrimination today, so it’s little surprise to find early modern Europe thick with anti-Gypsy legislation.
No surprise, Angus Fraser writes in The Gypsies, this sort of thing:
did in the end produce enormous changes in the life of the Gypsies in Europe. To survive, they had to adapt; they also had to make the most of the loopholes in a system which expressly sought, by denying them food and shelter, to make honest living impossible. Some found a degree of security in inaccessible waste-lands and forests. Some exploited differences in jurisdiction and the spasmodic nature of the authorities’ activity, by making a home in frontier regions … Many broke up into small groups when it was necessary to avoid attention; conversely, others gathered into larger bands to facilitate self-protection … sometimes resorting to violence. Certain Gypsy brigands gained notoriety in eighteenth-century Germany, large tracts of which were overrun with robber companies of mixed and varying origins. Some of these had a strong Gypsy element: numbering perhaps 50 or 100, armed and defiant, they stole for their sustenance and skirmished with the soldier-police sent to confine them.
“The poor Gypsies,” one poor Gypsy lamented to a contemporary German author,* “also want to have the right to live.”
Like the Gypsies’ other necessities, that right went as far as they themselves could secure it … and when secured by brigandage, it eventually brought down an overwhelming response....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
When this group of people move into any area crime goes up. Ask any cop and they will tell you. Unless you are a Gypsy you are fair game. They love to prey on old folks, ripping off entire life savings. They are true villians.
Probably one too many driveway-resurfacing scams proved to be the last straw.
My great grandparents on my father’s side came from Hesse-Darmstadt. They were not Gypsies.
Back in the 80’s a Gypsy chief was saved in our church at the time. He was the patriarch, and everyone in the “tribe” listened to him.
One of the issues that came up is that he forbade any of his descendants from cheating in their work.
We even accepted a bid from his company to resurface the blacktop at our church. Let’s just say that there were many raised eyebrows when it was announced ...
And it ended up being one of the best asphalt and tar jobs our parking lot ever had.
They have the skill to do the job correctly, they just needed the motivation to use that skill.
I lived in Darmstadt for a year and attended Darmstadt American School. The executions in question took place in Giessen, a town north of Frankfurt, which had a large US Army base during the Cold War.
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