Latvia

   Estimated Gypsy population: 14,000. The official population according to the 1989 census was 7,044, with 84 percent speaking Romani as their mother tongue. Latvia was an independent country in the period 1919-1940 and again from 1991. By the 20th century, the majority of Romanies living in the country had been sedentarized during the years of Russian rule. Soon after the German occupation in 1941, the Einsatzgruppen began killing Gypsies. At Ludza, Gypsies were locked up in a synagogue, then taken to the nearby forest and shot. Only in Talsen and Daugawpils were local Latvian officials able to protect the Gypsies. It is thought that about 2,000 were killed in all, a third of the population.

   After 1944 when Soviet troops reoccupied the country, there was immigration by Gypsies from elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Some anti-Gypsy activity persists today. Joachim Siegerist, leader of the People's Movement for Latvia, was convicted in Germany for incitement to racial hatred as a result of distributing more than 17,000 circulars in which he said "Gypsies produce children like rabbits" and are "a seedy criminal pack who should be driven out of the country." His party gained 15 percent of the vote in the Latvian general election of October 1995.

   In 1933 Janis Leimanis translated St. John's Gospel into Romani. Janis Neilands is the leader of a small educational movement that has opened two Romani schools and produced a language primer in the local dialect. Karlis Rudjevics is a contemporary artist.