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#BuchEnde

„The train's rattle brought everyone back to the world of happy, hopeful daydreams. Unknown landscapes swept past the barbwired wagon windows, and our smiling gazes got stuck in the showering sparks of the chugging engine. Now and then we emptied the piss-filled buckets, lest their fermenting stench interfere with our lofty imaginations.“

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"Listen to me, please! We have divided you into two groups.
We know it's not easy to be separated from your families, but we have to admit that there is a war on, and the country is badly in need of workers. You will be going to two different places to work, but the time will come when you will meet up again."

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„You are a Gypsy!" he said in such a natural voice that it seemed not to be him saying it but me acknowledging it. „You can't live between two worlds — you must break with one of them!"

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„I didn't want to exaggerate, but I was convinced that they would hide it among their deepest secrets just like their relationships with Balush. They could make up hundreds of other stories. And knowing my kind, they would always find those stories that most served their purposes.“

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Summer would soon be over, and the time of starvation would return. This world would shrink even more; there wouldn't be any place or opportunity for mating, for mere looks to awaken desire. If only there could be an eternal spring with neverending summers, then perhaps there would be more prospects for life and more room in our minds to fill up with
other thoughts.

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Like any community, the Gypsies' is built on property. (…) the Gypsies have just one asset, one piece of property: the woman. Among her people, she counts as private property. Only her treatment and utilization varies from one community of Gypsies to another.

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Meanwhile the children live like chickens, getting something thrown to them once a day while the women squirrel away the choicest bits for the men. Well, if this counts as custom — I thought — it won't last until tomorrow, because I'll feed the meat to the children today.

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If a satisfactory deal wasn't reached, old customs gave the deceived father the right to take revenge by disfigurement. It would be entirely up to him whether he cut off her nose or her hair. Nonrelatives could intervene only if they paid up.