The Gypsy gangs in Bohemia: The invasion of infectious diseases

Established during the late imperial period, negative attitudes toward the Roma, viewing them as criminal and asocial, became caught up in the general fear of infectious diseases, especially in Bohemia, which experienced several pandemics of flu and other infectious diseases between 1919 and 1922. In the early 1920s, the Roma started to be seen as key carriers of the Spanish flu, the most dangerous pandemic at the time, as well as other infectious diseases such as smallpox, anthrax and typhus. Under the direct pressure of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Internal Affairs started a campaign aimed at “exterminating the Gypsy evil” by limiting freedom of movement for “Gypsy bands” and reinforcing their medical surveillance in Bohemia. The Ministry of Internal Affairs obliged local authorities, especially in the central region near Prague, to collect as much data as possible about the “Gypsy gangs.”

The discourse of functional health was applied comprehensively to constructing the “Gypsy issue.” As with other groups under the remit of Czechoslovak health policy, the Roma's state of health was monitored, albeit for quite a different aim: not to help them, but to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases. The general tone of the proposal was extremely hostile. “Vagrant gang” (kočující tlupa) remained the only concept to describe any Roma group: “Vagrant gangs are a permanent source of insecurity for the residential population because of the spread of infectious diseases, even though we do not need to speak about the other troubles created by them (theft, fraud, etc.) which are not directly under our responsibility to prevent.”