Europe is commonly depicted as the cradle of modernity. But this image usually has a blind eye for marginal communities and cultures existing seemingly apart of the big developments. An example of this is the neglect of the Roma people who settled here early, on the threshold of the Middle Ages and the modern era. The attitude of the European people towards this mobile ethnic group can be described as moving between contempt and fascination. Referring to images of gypsies in literature and other cultural expressions the author shows how during the Romantic era the gypsies were serving as a projection object for desires and fantasies about socially deviant lifestyles. The subsequent process of ‘de-Europeanization’ together with the creation of exotic images through ethnology is described as well as the racial theories and their political consequences for the Roma people in the twentieth century. Instead of contributing to the creation of borderlines and fuelling destruction fantasies, art and sciences should give more attention to the undividedness of humankind and to human dignity.