WI Gypsy Israel

[Tyr]

WI in the wake of WW2 a decision is made to give the Roma a homeland?

Ah, I hear you cry, its not so simple as that. The Jews had many rich and powerful figures amongst them and on their side, who had been pressing for Israel for decades.
And yes! The Roma didn't want such a thing. It goes contrary to their culture!

But....this isn't a WI purpose designed to try and make things better for the Roma. I'd imagine such a TL wouldn't be particularly nice for them at all....


So. How could we do it?
I think the key has to lie with the Soviets. They're the ones with the will and the land.
Romania too seems to have a part to pay.
Romania puts up more of a fight against the Soviets and in anger they set up this state? The Hungarians put up a fight and it is the Hungarian Romanian lands that are taken? Romania is more on the soviet side and as a reward they get to be rid of their troublesome minority, sent off somewhere else in Europe?

What would result?
Could a collection of disparate, predominantly poor and uneducated, people crammed into an alien land manage to pull something together thanks to Soviet aid?
Or are we talking somewhere so bad that it makes Albania look like Luxembourg?

 

[riggerrob]

I have a tough time seeing Roma gypsies settled in any one homeland.
Consider that Roma originally migrated from India to fill an economic niche all over Europe. Roma provided part-time skills to scattered rural populations. Settled populations do not really want Roma to stop trading, tinkering pots, telling fortunes, trading horses, selling patent medicine, doing magic tricks, cobbling shoes, dancing girls, etc. because the "travelling circus" provides a brief relief from the crushing boredom of sedentary farming.
"Blame it on the gypsies" is also a convenient explanation for robberies, arson, murder and embarrassing pregnancies. Sure, we all know that the hired hand "knocked up" the mayor's daughter, but it is far easier to " blame it on gypsies" than to allow the young couple to marry.
Much as sedentary populations scapegoat gypsies, they don't really want gypsies to disappear.

 

[Halagaz]

Romanian territory (especially the post-1940 core territories) probably wouldn't be the best choice for a Gypsy homeland. Antonescu's regime was already dedicated to a "heroic last stand" against the USSR, but it cannot and did not last forever...and IIRC Romania did not have anything even remotely like a Roma holocaust. The city-dwelling Gypsies were treated more or less like Romanians, while those from the countryside were sometimes deported to Transnistria.

Turning the Szekely land, or a slice of northeastern Hungary, into some kind of a Roma Autonomous Socialist Republic seems a bit more likely.

The end result would be extremely poor. I don't think it would be a failed state, not quite, but it would be very close.