Hungary's Roma speak openly of the Gypsy Holocaust

In a shabby upper room at the back of a run-down courtyard, a young violinist plays a mournful melody while an old couple, their faces withered by years of exposure to harsh sunshine and biting cold, look on impassively.

Janosni Kovari and Ferenc Nagy have come to this Jewish community hall to tell their stories from the Holocaust. They are not Jews, however, but Roma gypsies and their experiences form part of a terrible, untold narrative of the 20th century.

Mr Nagy was 21 when he was arrested in the middle of a cold night in 1944 and taken to a disused factory where, among hundreds of other sick and starving Roma, he watched his grandmother die beside him. "There was nothing I could do. The door was locked. The following day, they dug a great hole in the middle of a field and threw the dead bodies inside," he told me.

For a long time after the end of the second World War, Roma Holocaust survivors who returned to Hungary were reluctant to speak openly about their experiences but now, more than half a century later, Mr Nagy believes it is important that their story should be told.

"It has a message for young people because this horror should never happen again. A lot of Roma people have worked hard for this country and would like to be equal with non-Roma," he said.

Although they face less persecution than Roma in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Romania, Hungary's Roma are probably worse off today than at any time since the end of the second World War. The closure of many large state-owned factories following the collapse of communism drove hundreds of thousands of Hungarians out of work but hit the Roma hardest.

"They were the main casualties of the reforms. They lost their jobs. Before the changes, 95 per cent of Roma men had jobs. In some remote parts, Roma unemployment is now at 80 per cent. It's horrendous. I tell you, it's a time bomb ticking all the time," according to Endre Aczel, Hungary's most well-known political commentator.

Inside Budapest's vast, mock-gothic parliament build ing, which is based on London's Palace of Westminster, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's youthful advisers lope around in T-shirts and jeans. Described by their critics as "the yuppies from hell", many of the right-wing prime minister's aides are young Hungarians who have re turned from the US to take charge of their country's transformation.

At 33, Andras Kiraly is the senior adviser on foreign policy and national security and one of the key figures in the administration's campaign for early membership of the EU.

Sipping an espresso in his spacious office, this earnest young man in a black T-shirt and khaki chinos accepts that the EU is unhappy with Hungary's treatment of its Roma minority. But he dismisses the suggestion that his country is sitting on a social time bomb.

"It is a very complicated issue and you must see that the government's means to deal with it are limited. What we are missing from the Roma is a middle class with strong intelligentsia, a driving force, a Roma success story. The government will help to facilitate the emergence of a Roma elite," he said.

Organisations such as the European Roma Foundation believe there is a lot that the government can do to help Hungary's Roma, starting with an end to police brutality and the introduction of anti-discrimination legislation.

The foundation's co-chair, Dr Eva Orsos, says that by taking steps to eliminate popular prejudice against the Roma, the government could help to end their social exclusion.

"There are a lot of problems in society that you can solve if you get rid of prejudice. It is most important to change people's attitudes, which is very difficult. There should be anti-discrimination measures, some educational programmes, media programmes and conflict management. We must speak much more about the Roma tradition and culture," she said.

The government's failure to take decisive action to improve the lot of the Roma contrasts with its eagerness to pass a law conferring special status on ethnic Hungarians who live outside the country's borders. After the first World War, Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory, leaving large Hungarian minorities in all its neighbouring states.

Under the so-called Status Law, these ethnic Hungarians would be allowed to enter Hungary without a visa and, perhaps, to work there for a limited period each year but they would not become Hungarian citizens. If, as seems likely, Hungary joins the EU before Romania and Slovakia, Budapest will be obliged to enforce stricter border controls with these countries.

Towards the end of our conversation, Mr Kiraly handed me a map of the region highlighting border areas where Budapest operates cross-border co-operation with its neighbours. Hungary sees these agreements, which deal with everything from pollution to trade, as the best way of protecting the interests of Hungarians outside its borders.

The EU approves of these arrangements, although there is some disquiet about the emphasis on ethnicity in the proposed Status Law. But it is Hungary's treatment of its biggest internal minority, the Roma, that will occupy the attention of most European observers.

Mr Aczel suggests that self-interest should prompt the EU to help the Hungarians to improve the lot of the Roma because Hungary's problem today will be Europe's in the future.

"If they want to take us in, they'll take in all the Roma too. The Roma have already started emigrating to EU member states. There is a certain unwillingness, to say the least, on the part of the EU countries to take Hungarian or Czech Roma in," he said.