Romer det ansiktslösa folket i Europa [“Roma people in Europe without a face in Europe”] is the story of a journey: Bennie Åkerfeldt writes about a trip through Europe visiting Romani people in various countries. The pages selected for presentation in RomArchive illustrate his style of mixing the description of his journey in the present with explanations about the history of the Roma. The historical photo by Arthur Thesleff (p. 105), provided by the Royal library in Stockholm and showing three Romani bear tamers, is embedded in the author’s chapter on the history of the Romani slavery in Moldova that ended by law in 1855/56 (p. 106).

On page 170 Bennie Åkerfeldt is back in the present and writes about the huge Roma community in the suburb Šutka in Skopje, Macedonia, e.g. about the elderly Romani activist Ekerem Jasarov who talks about former work of his parents at the tobacco harvest (p. 189-190).

(Bengt O Björklund)

Textsamples source

Åkerfeldt, Bennie. 2012. Romer det ansiktslösa folket i Europa. Mörrüm: Förlagstryckeriet Vitterleken, pp. 105–106; 170; 189–190.