Welcome to Robert Dawson Gallery Site
TWO new important Gypsy Traveller book:
British Gypsy and Traveller History Through Art to 1900. Descriptions of over 600 pre 1900 British paintings/drawings/prints and analysis of what they prove about British GT history. A4, 160 b&w illustrations including 15 identified GTs, 170 pages, 11 tables,8 appendices. Many surprises. Sections on carts tents and wagons, costume, law, animals, travel, occupations, travel and numbers, camps, equipment etc, indications of area of country being illustrated and much much more. Not available through bookshops. My website www.robertdawson.co.uk
My latest young adult novel
Tom is a young man from the traveller community with a six-year-old sister, Luckry (Lucretia) who’s a bit of a pain, and a ‘girlfriend’ (don’t say that or she’ll slap him) Nat. All is going well in a kids growing up kind of way until fracking starts in the local countryside. Tom got his nickname ‘Blotch’ owing to the burns he got from corrosive chemicals stored in the mining company’s yard next door to the Traveller site.
But the Travelling community has some beliefs that are not held by everyone and such strong family ties that even death cannot separate generations. And when Luckry swears she’s received instructions from dead Big Gran involving throwing money in a wishing well she just has to do it, even if means bringing on an earthquake … and then she goes missing leaving Tom and Nat with the terrifying task of trying to find her.
This is an adventure story which has central themes of acceptance of Travellers, a big brother looking out for his little sister. and the dangers of dabbling with our environment.
Available as hardback (£14.99) and paperback (£7.99). I'll be honoured and delighted to sign copies for people.
To order, see my website bob@robertdawson.co.uk
Publisher Austin Macauley www.austinmacauley.com
NOTE ABOUT REPRODUCTION
I AM HAPPY FOR PEOPLE TO REPRODUCE IMAGES FROM THIS SITE SUBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING. I HAVE THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE MAJORITY OF THE IMAGES. MANY ARE UNIQUE. ANY ITEMS REPRODUCED FROM THIS SITE MUST STATE: "Reproduced by courtesy of the Robert Dawson Romany Collection." Some images may also be copyright and users must clear copyright for themselves - I cannot give that consent.
On this site are a range of pictures of Gypsies and other Travellers in history, the UK and elsewhere. It is still under construction and will be for a long time to come. When I can I am including additional information but often the pictures speak for themselves.
They have been accumulated over a 50 year period (mainly in the last 30) and some are very rare or even unique. Please note tat though a minority of these pictures are widely available, I have the only copy for some and may hold the intellectual property rights. Others are copyright other people (such as Barrie Law). So if you want to use them somehow or in something, you must obtain permission first. A fee may be involved depending on what they are required for. I have also donated some 500 originals of the Gypsy Holocaust to the National Holocaust Centre at Laxton, Notts.
Aad Wagenaar’s moving book and exceptionally important book SETTELA, very ably translated into English by Janna Eliot, is now out. £7.99 plus £2.01 p&p = £10.00 Soft-back, approx. 120 pages
TO ORDER:
Send a cheque, made payable to
R L Hollands, to:
Lamorna Publications, Yew Tree Studio, Marshwood, Bridport, Dorset DT6 5QF
THE BOOK WILL BE SENT TO YOU, FIRST CLASS
Aad Wagenaar, a leading Dutch journalist, was haunted by the image of a young girl looking out from a boarded up cattle train – she appears for no more than seven seconds in a film of a forced exodus. The train was bound for Auschwitz.
Wagenaar was so touched by this image that he determined to discover her identity. Who was she and did she survive?
In this book, first published in Dutch in 1995, Wagenaar recounts his tireless search for the truth. After visiting the Westerbork transit camp in Holland, and searching the war archives in Scheveningen and Amsterdam, and meeting Jewish Auschwitz survivors, he finds the Dutch Sinti (Gypsy) community…..and the answer to his quest. That iconic face belonged to a Sinti girl known as Settela. She did not survive but was, at just nine years old, murdered at Auschwitz.
The book was translated into English by Janna Eliot and published in 2005 by Five Leaves Publications with an Afterword by Dr Ian Hancock who writes on the Holocaust (Porrajmos – the Devouring - in Vlax Romani) as it affected Romani and Sinti people.
When Five Leaves Publications decided to withdraw the book, SETTELA, was about to go out of print . However, thanks to Janna Eliot’s campaign to save the book from the obscurity Settela herself suffered for so many years, Lamorna Publications took up the baton.
SS and Romanies on Photos
Many photos show Romanies with Nazi solders. I had always assumed these were simply casual encounters but a detailed examination of 89 such photos show that in 50 such photos, the Romanies are with SS soldiers and in 9 more believed to be so.
March 2016: The death certificate below is from one of the labour sub camps at Auschwitz - not the Gypsy camp, proving the presence of Gypsies other than in the Gypsy camp. I have obtained several more, plus punishment sentences of mainly Austrian Sinti or Roma from Gross-Rosen plus a few permissions to go to the camp brothel, again mainly Austrian. I have more to go up to do with the genocide of Romanies but time and my health situation work against me.
I have concentration camps - mainly from Gross Rosen - for Zigeuners of the following surnames. Most are Punishment Orders or Death Certificates. Sometimes I have certificates of more than one person with the surname. Sometimes I suspect that German spelling of surnames was unreliable.
Angelowicz, Arkan, Arogant, Bagniska, Bakuto, Balamut, Baranskij, Baron, Barylka, Birbant, Bojkavicz, Bordi, Braginskij, Braginow, Brodski, Czarnyj, Czerwinski, Czerwony, Danko, Drozdek, Grodecki, Holobla, Hufnal, Hultaj, Ignatowski, Iwanovskij, Kalinowski, Karalski, Kowalksi, Majewski, Majka, Nemirowski, Oleszko, Podolskaj, Poklonski, Rodskij, Romanava, Romanowski, Ruzzkij, Sagan, Schandor, Schukowicz, Sobolowski, Stefanowski, Tokar, Wedrowiec, Wedzidlo, Wegierka, Weinarowksi, Wierzba, Wilczur, Wilk, Winnika, Wizak, Wolynskij, Wozak, Zareba, Zirko, Zwanski I also have death cards for the following Zigeuners in the German army: Schmidt, Schuh, Weiss. Mid March 2017
The total of images on this website now exceeds 4000. There are still a few more dozen to come. Just added more images to: Early Gypsies and History Fairs Scottish Nawken Lifestyle Portraits Irish Non UK Art Camps etc Wagons Holocaust I will moisten your eyes with tears. The original photo above, near the top, has been labelled on the back by the German soldier: 'krabbe lause' (= 'pubic lice'. I cannot do German accents on my machine) Also, I am on the brink of putting up some punishment sentences on named Roma at Gross-Rosen. 
Above, left, little malnourished Gypsy girl in a concentration camp; right, Gypsy children in a camp at Vranje Banja, c 1942. Below, myself aged about 17/18 with my own wagon.
Left, Vincent., Gypsies on a Path; below, the Cooper family, Queen Victoria.
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Left, wayside burial site at Belph, Derbys, members of RTFHS and myself. . (Unsure of family buried there but believed to be Edwards)
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