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EXPLORE THE HISTORY OF Antigypsyism IN Czechia
2004 – 2024
The European Union
Across the period 2004–2024, antigypsyism in Czechia manifested through recurring waves of public hostility, far-right mobilisation, and targeted violence against Roma communities. Although the country entered the EU with commitments to minority protection, Roma continued to face deep social exclusion, segregated housing, and routine verbal and physical attacks. Neo-Nazi and extremist groups, including National Resistance, Blood & Honour/Combat 18, and Autonomous Nationalists, repeatedly exploited local tensions, organising marches, arson attacks, and intimidation campaigns. These groups found support among segments of local populations—particularly in regions experiencing economic decline—where antigypsyist narratives about “crime,” “welfare abuse,” or cultural incompatibility were widely circulated.
The rise of social media further normalised antigypsyist rhetoric, enabling both organised extremists and “ordinary” citizens to share threats, incite violence, and frame Roma as a public enemy. During periods of heightened tension—such as the Janov (2008), Šluknov (2011), and Duchcov (2013) riots—large crowds, including non-extremist locals, attempted to storm Roma homes, demonstrating how quickly systemic prejudice could escalate into mass violence. Violent attacks, including Molotov bombings, assaults on children, and threats inspired by global terrorists like Anders Breivik, contributed to chronic insecurity among Roma. While police responses and hate-crime sentencing improved over time, antigypsyism remained embedded in public discourse and local politics, with extremist and populist actors continuing to capitalise on anti-Roma sentiment.
1991 – 2004
The Time of Democratization
After the fall of communism, on the one hand, a targeted policy in favor of national minorities, including the Roma, began to be implemented, on the other hand, there were extensive anti-Gypsy activities. Various politicians spoke out against the Roma (for example, the chairman of the Association for the Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia Miroslav Sládek) and at the same time, a racist skinhead subculture was on the rise, which was behind attacks against the Roma, including several murders. There was a strong fear of racism in the Roma community, which also contributed to the large-scale emigration in the late 1990s. Security and judicial forces were only gradually learning how to handle racist incidents (a turning point was the measures taken after the murder of the Roma Tibor Berki in 1995). Nevertheless, they were criticized by human rights NGOs.
1945 – 1991
The Time of Authoritarianism
In the decades after 1945, antigypsyism in Czechoslovakia remained deeply embedded in state policy, policing practices, and public attitudes. Although the communist regime officially rejected racism, Roma continued to be labelled as “asocial,” “backward,” or inherently predisposed to criminality—categories inherited from pre-war policing and reinforced by Nazi-era racial classifications. Rather than confronting the wartime genocide of Roma, the post-war state often denied Roma victimhood, as shown by the 1948 acquittal of the Lety camp commander and the readiness of local authorities to treat Roma as traitors or security threats. Surveillance, forced registration, and targeted interventions by security services framed Roma as a population requiring constant control. Everyday interactions with the police were shaped by structural prejudice, with Roma men frequently subjected to arbitrary detention, coercion, or humiliating treatment.
By the 1950s and 1960s, antigypsyism took on an assimilationist character: the state sought to eliminate Romani cultural practices, most visibly through the 1958 law banning nomadism, which criminalised traditional livelihoods and justified expanded police oversight. Discrimination permeated housing, employment, and education, while racist stereotypes circulated informally despite official narratives of equality. In the 1970s and 1980s, antigypsyism hardened into both institutional neglect and rising street-level hostility. Roma were targeted in disproportionate policing operations and were vulnerable to harassment by officials, as reflected in forced transports or degrading treatment by security forces. Simultaneously, a new racist subculture emerged, with neo-Nazi groups and skinhead gangs planning or committing violent attacks. These developments exposed the regime’s inability—or unwillingness—to confront racism, leaving Roma communities increasingly exposed to both state discrimination and extremist violence on the eve of the democratic transition.
1939 – 1945
Times of War and Genocide
Antigypsyism in the Czech lands during 1939–1945 drew on long-standing prejudices that cast Roma and Sinti as “asocial,” criminal, or work-averse. These stereotypes were quickly absorbed into the Protectorate’s racial system. Roma communities faced compulsory settlement, intrusive registration, constant police surveillance, and escalating restrictions that separated them socially and spatially from the rest of society. Local authorities enforced measures with zeal—fingerprinting, movement control, and forced labour—treating Roma not as citizens but as a problem to be managed and contained.
Under Nazi racial policy, this discrimination turned into systematic persecution. Roma men were detained in disciplinary camps; families were later imprisoned in the Lety and Hodonín “Gypsy camps,” where hunger, violence and disease were rampant. Racial decrees enabled arbitrary arrests, deportations, and public executions. After Himmler’s 1942 decree, almost all Protectorate Roma were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most died from starvation, illness or were murdered during the liquidation of the “Gypsy camp” in August 1944. The experience of the period was one of total dehumanisation, culminating in near-annihilation and leaving deep scars that would shape post-war marginalisation and antigypsyism for generations.
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