wfn.org | Missionaries in Hungary work to make life better for Roma

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Note #6140 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

3-August-2000
00277

Missionaries in Hungary work to make life better for Roma

Korean Presbyterians provide scholarship money for young "Gypsies"

by Evan Silverstein

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The Rev. Kaeja Cho witnessed the poverty and plight of
the Dalit people during a 1995 visit to India. She remembers large families
crammed into one-room shacks, cast off by society, struggling every day to
survive.
	It was while she was in India that the South Korean mission worker knew
that she was called was to serve the Dalit -- better known as Untouchables.
    	"I fell in love with them," she said.
	But despite her commitment to the Dalit people, Kaeja and her husband, the
Rev. Stephen Cho, were asked in 1997 by their denomination, the Presbyterian
Church of the Republic of Korea (PROK), to accept a mission assignment in
Hungary.
	"I couldn't figure out why God sent me to Hungary and not India," said
Kaeja Cho, who also is a mission worker for the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.), a partner denomination of the PROK. "Then I met the Roma, and
discovered how much they resembled the Dalit in every way. I know now that
I'm here to help the Roma of Hungary. God works in so many mysterious ways."
    	Kaeja and Stephen are working with the Roma in Hungary to make a
difference. The married couple of 31 years is attempting to establish new
church developments and leadership to guide the country's estimated 2
million Roma -- also known as Gypsies -- while serving the Korean Mission
and Cultural Center in Budapest.
    	"They are treated not as a people in Europe," said Cho. "They are
treated like untouchables."
	Korean-American churches affiliated with the PC(USA) are providing
scholarships  for 10 Roma children to attend elementary and high schools
each year. The awards range from $300 to $700 per student.
	Roma children often need food and shelter, basic health care and access to
education for their children, Kaeja Cho said.
	"There are seven family members living in this house," she said, pointing
to a picture of a one-room Roma house crowded with children and parents.
	"There's only one light in the house," Stephen Cho pointed out.
	Ninety percent of the approximately 10 million people who live in Hungary
are ethnic Hungarians. The Roma are the second-largest group, at 4 percent.
Next comes Germans, with 2.6 percent, followed by smaller groups of Serbs (2
percent), Slovaks (0.8 percent) and Romanians (0.7 percent). Roma tend to
adopt the dominant religious practices of the areas they move through. Most
Roma in Hungary claim they are Roman Catholics or members of the Reformed
Church; those are the nation's two largest faith groups.
	The early history of the Roma is unclear, but they seem to have originated
in India in the 13th century and to have reached Iran by the 14th century.
In the mid-15th century they reached Hungary and entered Serbia and other
Balkan countries. Eventually they then migrated into Poland and Russia, and
by the 16th century they had reached Bosnia and Serbia.
	The road they have traveled often has been bloody. Because of prejudice
against the Roma, they were not allowed to obtain land in their adopted
countries. Many became traveling merchants, buying and selling horses and
other animals, working as silver- and gold-smiths, entertaining their hosts
with song and dance. Fortune-telling, for which they are famed, was seldom
more than a sideline. The Roma have been accused, often wrongly, of stealing
and other dishonesty.
	Throughout their history, the Roma have been treated much as European Jews
were treated in the 20th century. On occasion, this hostility gave birth to
murderous policies: A Prussian king, Frederick William I, decreed in 1725
that all Roma over the age of 18 were to be killed.
	Roma have also faced a challenge in Hungary, according to Bertalan Tamas,
an ecumenical officer for the Reformed Church in Hungary, which also helps
the Roma.
	"I think today it is a more challenging problem and that's why we should do
more for them, but it will not be easy. There are prejudices in this
society," said Tamas, noting that the  Roma population in his country is
growing. "What can we do for the education, integration of the Roma in the
society? If you don't do something ... my feeling is that it will create
more tensions in the society in the future."
	Although for different historical reasons, the Roma shared with the Jews
the doubtful honor of being the quintessential outsiders in an overwhelming
Christian Europe. In 1899 Bavaria established a special office for "Gypsy
Affairs." Thirty years later, a similar office in Munich, Germany, became a
central bureau, with close ties to another such agency in Vienna, Austria.
	In 1929, regulations went into effect permitting German police to gather up
unemployed Roma and force them to work on government projects. Similar
regulations were implemented in several other European countries. In 1941,
there were about 28,000 Roma in Germany and 11,000 in Austria. Most belonged
to the Sinti and Lalleri tribes.
	The Nazi Party considered the Roma to be sub-humans with nothing to
contribute to Adolf Hitler's Aryan "master race."
	In 1936, groups of Roma were delivered to the Dachau concentration camp as
"asocials."  Information about their ultimate fate is sketchy. Some believe
more than 200,000 Roma were murdered throughout Europe. Other estimates put
the number at 90,000.
	Today, however, some people -- some of them Presbyterians -- are trying to
help, in large ways and small.
	One way to lift the spirits of at least a few Roma, said Kaeja Cho, is to
invite them to a marshmallow roast. She and a group of young Roma recently
charred a few of the white spongy treats over an open fire.
	"One little piece of marshmallow makes people so happy," she said. "In
Hungary, with the Roma people, we just experienced the Kingdom of God with
some little pieces of marshmallow."

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