"Gypsies-Roma. Forgotten Images". at Romantic

"Gypsies-Roma. Forgotten Images".

August 15th, 2007 by Olia Yatskevich

What a lucky day! Strolling through the Saski Park in Warsaw this morning, by pure accident, I came across wonderful open air photo exhibition on Polish Roma. “Gypsies - Roma. Forgotten Images“. The collection presents documented everyday life of Polish Roma in 50-60s of XX century. These black-and-white images probably the last saved piece of world and nomadic life style of Roma. It seems that random visitors of this amazing public art presentation were lucky enough - these photos have not been published for a long time. The photos were taken by Janusz Helfer, Polish photographer from Cracow, who was enthrall by Roma culture.

Although, the settlements have dramatically changed life of Travellers, it have not cut them off their roots and traditions. The photographer has captured various aspects and interesting moments of everyday life of Polish Roma. You can see images of smiling children and people of older generation, tentcamps and family gatherings.

I was really happy to see that this exhibition has attracted attention of quite a lot of people who happened to be in the park. Good news! I had my camera with me and I am more then happy to share with you my photos on the photo exhibition on Polish Roma of 1950-60s. I hope this will give you an impression of this great collection.

“The campsite nearby Rzaska. That’s the time when it was started to talk about future in case of the Gipsies would settle down. There are Lowarian carts and here we can see the Polish Gipsy camp. They were visiting each other and talking. I have never seen the situation to form a campsite together during such a meeting. Even closely related Lowarians and Kelderatians have some separated ones. For example nearby Rzaska it was the Lowarian campsite at one side and the Kelderation campsite at the other side and here are the tents of Polish Gipsies”

“I noticed that this girl was sitting and feeding her baby, and I took her a photo. After that she started to hide behind the cart. I have been waiting for a moment to make her another photo as she was feeding there. That why this second photo was more interesting than the first one”.

“In the afternoon men used to wait for women coming back from their town with some money, some hens. At this time they were drinking some liquor. Evening dinner has been eaten after women’s arrival and the rest of food next morning, the following day”.

“We don’t want any wealth, we want to live on our roads. Rain, storm and some cry. These ARE some pieces of our happiness, the Gipsies” (Papusha’s song).