The Czech Roma community: six centuries of history behind today's debates

Read Czech news for long enough and you will meet stories about Roma: housing, education, employment, discrimination, sometimes violence. They tend to arrive without context, and newcomers can end up with a flat picture. The context is not complicated, but it starts with history that is unfamiliar even to many Czechs.

What follows is background, not an account of any individual case. It avoids population figures, because census results and the estimates of researchers and NGOs differ widely.

Arrival and early history

The first records of Roma in the Czech lands date from the fifteenth century. They came as part of a migration that began in India and passed through the Balkans into Central and Western Europe. Early documents show Roma travelling as craftsmen, musicians, horse dealers and metalworkers, sometimes with letters of protection from rulers and sometimes subject to expulsion orders.

The Habsburg state pursued assimilation. Maria Theresa and Joseph II issued decrees to settle the Roma, restrict their language and dress, place their children with other families and call them "new citizens" rather than Gypsies. The aim was integration, but the means were coercive and the policy failed in practice. For the background to the monarchy see the Habsburg era in the Czech lands.

Between the wars

Under the First Republic, discussed in interwar Czechoslovakia: the First Republic, Roma had the same formal rights as other citizens, but a law of 1927 on itinerant persons required travelling Roma to carry special identity papers and subjected them to police controls, including fingerprinting. The Protectorate authorities later used the resulting registers. A measure taken in a democratic state was turned to other ends under occupation.

The war years

During the occupation the Protectorate government ordered the internment of Roma in two camps, at Lety u Písku in Bohemia and Hodonín u Kunštátu in Moravia, which opened in 1942. In 1943 the camps were closed and most inmates were deported to the Roma family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Many died in the Czech camps from disease and hunger, and most of those deported were murdered. The Roma of Bohemia and Moravia were almost entirely destroyed. The Romani Holocaust is known in Romani as Porajmos or Samudaripen, and is commemorated each year on 2 August.

Lety became a source of controversy after 1989 because a pig farm had been built on the grounds of the former camp in the communist period. Roma organisations, historians and international bodies campaigned for its removal, and the state eventually bought the farm and cleared the site for a memorial. The case became a reference point in debates about how the Czech state remembers the Romani Holocaust.

After 1945: a new community

The genocide drastically reduced the Roma population of Bohemia and Moravia, and few survivors returned. Roma from Slovakia, where the community had suffered less destruction, moved to the Czech lands in large numbers after the war, often to border regions emptied of Germans (see Czech Germans and the Sudetenland), where housing and work were available. Much of today's Czech Roma community therefore descends from people who arrived after 1945, not from prewar families.

The Communist state treated Roma as a social problem to be solved by assimilation. A 1958 law banned nomadism and required settlement. Roma were steered into unskilled industrial jobs and housed in blocks in industrial districts, which later concentrated disadvantage. Roma culture and language got no support. Sterilisations of Roma women, which continued after the communist era began, were investigated by the ombudsman, and in 2009 the government expressed regret for them.

Since 1989

After the revolution Roma were recognised as a national minority, a status confirmed in the 2001 law on the rights of national minorities. The citizenship law adopted after the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993 caused problems for some Roma born in Slovakia, drew criticism from international organisations and was later amended. Unemployment among Roma rose as heavy industry declined, and segregated housing and schooling became a major issue.

In 2007 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the case of D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic that Roma children had been placed in special schools for pupils with mild mental disabilities at disproportionately high rates, which amounted to discrimination. The ruling set a precedent in European law and led to educational reforms that are still being evaluated. Policy has changed since, but inclusion in education remains central to the debate.

Today the government publishes a strategy for Roma equality, inclusion and participation for 2021 to 2030, and a Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs advises on policy (as of 2026; check the official source). Civil society organisations work on education, housing and legal aid. Romani culture is active in music, literature and journalism, and the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno, founded in 1991, holds collections and exhibitions on Romani history.

The legal framework today

Discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin is prohibited by the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2009 (no. 198/2009 Coll.), which applies to employment, housing, education, healthcare and access to services. The Public Defender of Rights, the Czech ombudsman, serves as the national equality body and can investigate complaints and issue recommendations. Court cases can also be brought, and legal aid organisations help individuals to do so. How well the law works in practice, especially in housing and education, is a central question in Czech human rights debate. Reports by the ombudsman, the Council of Europe and EU bodies are the best way to follow it.

Reading the news carefully

Three cautions help. Numbers: census results count only people who declare Roma nationality, a far smaller group than those others identify as Roma, and estimates differ. Terms: Roma is the standard word in Czech public language and in English, while the older Czech word cikán is considered offensive by many. Generalisations: Roma communities include professionals, artists, entrepreneurs and students in every region, as well as people who face serious disadvantage.

Read sources produced by Roma themselves and by the museum alongside government and media material. If you meet discrimination in housing or employment, the ombudsman is the official body to approach, and legal aid organisations can advise.

Frequently asked questions

When did Roma arrive in the Czech lands?

The first written records date from the fifteenth century.

What happened at Lety?

Lety u Písku was one of two Protectorate internment camps for Roma, opened in 1942. Many inmates died there or were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Why is the D.H. ruling important?

In 2007 the European Court of Human Rights found that Roma children had been disproportionately placed in special schools, amounting to discrimination.

Is Roma the correct term?

Yes. Roma is the standard term, and the older Czech word cikán is considered offensive by many.