Welcome to Robert Dawson Gallery Site

october, 2021. 
the website is not up to date - it probably wonlt ever be,  but it now has over 5000 images.
​

To assist visitors, the site consists of 5 galleries as follow:
GALLERY 1
Early Gypsies           History          Gypsies and Travellers in Art          8 pages of the Romani Holocaust (the Porrajmos)   

GALLERY 2
Work and Leisure images         British Art          Non British Art          Non UK Romanies, Eastern Europe          Non UK Romanies, Western Europe          Americas, Africa, Middle East, India          Balkans

GALLERY 3
UK Wagons, tents and Camps images          Wagons/Trailers only          Fairs and Fairgrounds      Non-UK Gypsies          Scottish Nawken          Irish Pavee Travellers          Stereotypes, Prejudice and Persecution          Portraits etc                           UK Encampments
Romani Holocaust Additions but no information 1
​
GALLERY 4
Additional UK images          West European          Eastern Europe          St Maries de la Mer          Romani Holocaust Additions, with information 1          Romani Holocaust Additions with Information 2          Romani Holocaust Additions with information 3          Elsewhere         

GALLERY 5
Additional Overseas images 1          Additional Overseas 2          General Overflow          Romani Holocaust Additions but no information 1   Romani Holocaust Additions but no information 2         Romani Holocaust Additions but no information 3          Others with location not known          Romani Holocaust occupied territories named   

REGARD TA KUSHTI BOK.

There's all sorts of books and pictures and documents, including Porrajmos,  for sale on my website bob@robertdawson.co.uk

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 60 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; 500 to Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group and over 1000 to the Roma Support Group.





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 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.

I will moisten your eyes with tears. The original photo below at the top,  has been labelled on the back by the German soldier:
'krabbe lause' (= 'pubic lice'. I cannot do German accents on my machine.)

Above left, children collecting wood for the fire, Caithness, 1928; right, interior of a wagon,  late 19thC

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.

---

Holland, 1944.  Left, this is Settela Steinbach, a Sinti Gypsy.  She's staring from a train leaving Kamp Westerbork.  A Jewish prisoner, forced to record life in the camp, focusses his camera lens on her innocent face, capturing one of the most poignant images of the Holocaust.  For fifty years, the mysterious "girl in the train" was assumed to be Jewish.  Then Aad Wagenaar, a Dutch journalist, intrigued  by this haunting clip from the "Westerbork film",  discovered the truth.    Settela was born in winter 1934.  Murdered in summer 1944.  Aad Wagenaar has written a fascinating book (translated by Janna Eliot) about his painful search to discover the girl's identity.  

 

 

---

Left, wayside burial site at Belph, Derbys, members of RTFHS and myself. . (Unsure of family buried there but believed to be Edwards)