Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Romani people originated in the Indian subcontinent, specifically the region of present-day Rajasthan, and their ancestors left India around 500 CE. Genetic and linguistic evidence confirms that they migrated westward through Persia and the Byzantine Empire before arriving in Europe during the 13th to 14th centuries.
The Romani people began facing severe persecution in Europe during the 15th century, with expulsions from Meissen in 1416, Lucerne in 1471, and Milan in 1493. In Switzerland, any Rom found after 1510 was to be executed, while in England and Denmark, those who did not leave within a month faced the same fate.
The enslavement of the Romani people in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia lasted for over 400 years until it was gradually abolished during the 1840s and 1850s. During this period, all Romani people were classified as slaves owned by the state or private landowners and forced to work as metalworkers, musicians, and laborers.
The Porajmos genocide claimed between 220,000 and 1,500,000 Romani lives during World War II. The Independent State of Croatia under the Ustaša regime killed almost the entire Romani population of 25,000, with the Jasenovac concentration camp responsible for the deaths of between 15,000 and 20,000 Roma.
The traditional Romani family structure places a high value on the extended family, with the oldest man or grandfather at the top of the power structure. The community is regulated by Indian social customs known as marime, which dictate what is considered pure and impure, affecting everything from the washing of clothes to the handling of the dead.