Polska Roma
Many Polska Roma also reside in North America, Switzerland, Great Britain and Sweden.some can also be found in Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia.
Those Polska Roma who spent the war in Soviet-controlled territories were able to maintain their orthodox practices, while those under German occupation, threatened by genocide, had to compromise the strictness of their traditions to survive.
There are other subgroups of the Polska Roma: - The Rapaci originate from the region of Bohemian Silesia, also called "Opole," which is now part of Poland.
In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Roma primarily moved to the Duchy of Lithuania rather than under the Crown, as they were better received in the northeast and enjoyed more privileges there.
In Germany, at that time characterized by fanatical opinions, order, and a spirit of strictness, the Gypsies quickly adapted to a free life and soon provoked the anger of the Germans.
The injustice of these measures lay in the fact that the government empowered any citizen (German) to arbitrarily harm, punish, and torture the Gypsies if they were captured in the country.
Wealthy landowners, who possessed vast tracts of land, were wary of reducing the population and even supported the settlement of the destitute.
German bands, scattered throughout the country, posed a threat of unrest, and the established residents began to perceive their presence as a deception.
The Polish Roma communities are more closed-off and mistrustful of outsiders (Gadje), less "assimilated," and more closely connected to the traditional Romanipen culture.
Regarding migration patterns, it is worth noting that reports of Roma in southern Poland, where their presence was already noticeable in the 14th century, have emerged.
The historical source that serves as the basis for this assumption is the privilege of free movement granted by Alexander Jagiellon, King of Poland (1501-1506) and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1492-1506).
Linguistic research has also shown that the Roma from Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia use loanwords from Polish and German, which also supports the historical evidence of their migration route.
Additionally, all these tribes speak the same identical dialect, the northeastern branch, which is also referred to as Baltic Romanes in linguistic research.
However, unlike most European countries, these laws were rarely enforced on a large scale, because the Roma found powerful protectors among the Szlachta (Polish nobility) and were subject to benevolent neglect.
Polish nobles, magnates, and large landowners valued the traditional crafts of the Roma, such as metallurgy, farming, and wheelwrighting, as well as their musical skills, which became an integral part of important events.
In many large estates of the magnates latifundia the Polska Roma communities were also granted the right to have a "king," elected to represent them in disputes with outsiders.
The Exile Decree is an Austrian imperial edict from the early 18th century that recalls earlier regulations against vagrants, including the Roma.
However, a distinction was made between the laws applicable in Augustus's home state of Saxony and those in the commonwealth itself, where the harshest measures were converted into fines or simply neglected by local authorities.
However, these privileges were lost with the partitions and the Polska Roma were forced back into servile status by the foreign powers (Austria, Prussia, Russia).
Until the mid-17th century, in Poland there were only examples of confirmation of seniority among leaders selected by the Gypsies themselves, supported by local property owners or land officials.
However, the oldest preserved document appointing a lifetime "office of seniority over all Gypsies who are and will be in the Crown and its adjacent countries", issued by King John II Casimir himself, dates back to 1652.
Ten years after Karolowicz's elevation, King John Casimir appointed another superior - Sebastian Gałęzowski, this time probably a nobleman.
The royal title was awarded until the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the last one was Jakub Znamierowski, a landowner from Lida) - from then on, the king was chosen independently by individual Families (clans) of Polish Gypsies.
After the German invasion and occupation of Poland the Nazis carried out a planned genocide of the Roma population as part of the final solution.
While prior to World War II a small portion of Polska Roma had become sedentary, most continued a traditional nomadic way of life.
Unlike the Lovarii and Kalderash, who often engaged in cross-national Europe-wide travels, Polska Roma tended to stay within the borders of interwar Poland or neighboring countries.
After the war, however, the communist government of People's Poland instituted a policy aimed at the "settling" of the Roma population which had survived the Holocaust.
The Polska Roma poet Papusza (Bronisława Wajs) became nationally renowned during this period, as did her nephew, Edward Dębicki.
Both the Mława police chief[25] and University of Warsaw sociology researchers[24] said that the pogrom was primarily due to class envy (some Romani have grown wealthy in the gold and automobile trades).
Nowadays a Roma drives a high-status car, lives in a fancy mansion, flaunts his wealth, brags that the local authorities and the police are on his pay and thus he is not afraid of anybody.
