Lucie HrdlickovaSeptember 2000PragueI heard this story from Emil Cína, a Romany poet, about two years ago. Emil is fifty-odd years old and comes from eastern Slovakia. He lives in Prague but goes back to Slovakia now and then. He told me about something that happened during one of those visits. Like any other Romany, Emil […]
John Erwin
She reminds me of a rubber toy on an elastic
Author: Verka Dudi K’otoLocation: OstravaThis story was told to me by Eva, a twenty-five year-old nursery school teacher."Liduska is a poor Romany kid. A year ago she fell out of a third floor window and landed on her head. Since then she’s been hyperactive, and her eyesight is bad: she has to wear thick glasses. […]
As an entrepreneur, Mr. Banom …
Author: Martin CichyLocation: Usti nad LabemMiss Jirina Banomová was glad to have this conversation, which I recorded in her kitchen. I had a good time. Jirina is thirty-one, slim, and approximately 170cm tall. She has brown eyes and black hair. She is Romany too."This story, which I love to remember, happened a year and a […]
It’s our last chance to give him anything
Emílie HoráckováMimon3 July 2000 I wake up at five a.m. to the insistent ringing of my alarm clock. I light a cigarette and think about a lot of things. Then I drink a cup of coffee, and that helps me get going. I won’t be going to school today as usual. I have to attend […]
What really matters
Author: Vera Dudi-KotoLocation: OstravaI’ve been working at this school as a teaching assistant for five years now, but my best experience happened last year. For three years I’ve had a white pupil in my class. His name is Stana, and he is dyslexic, and not very healthy either – but that is not what I want to […]
All the jobs are taken
Author: Martina HudeckováLocation: BrnoGábina Oláhová told me this story in her room, which looks like the rooms of most twenty-one year-old girls."I’ve been listed at the Employment Office for two years, and now I’m looking for work. But I often think that it is hard for me to find a job because I’m a Rom. […]
A mulo will never look you in the eye
Lenka BudilovaSviniaJune 2000The other day we met Emil Cina in the cemetery and he started telling us about mulos. You could see that he really believed in those ghosts, and he had plenty of stories to tell about them. Then he took us to the Romany section of the cemetery. It was terribly run down […]
May his hand with the bow in it do what he wants
Author: Katerina HolubovaLocation: BrnoLukás Conka is a nineteen year-old Romany boy, who now studies at the Junior High School for the Arts in Kosice, Slovakia. The violin means everything to him. He fills up every moment of spare time by picking up the violin and starting to play.I knew the story about how he came […]
How to do something as good as Terezin with the Romany Holocaust
ARTS OF TOLERANCEWorkshops, Performances and Discussions organized by the Stories Exchange ProjectTerezinCzech Republic18 and 19 September 2000Ilona Laznickova DirectorMuseum of Romany Culture BrnoThe building in which we will open the Museum is about to be finished. But for quite a while we’ve been thinking about what the Museum should look like inside, to show both […]
She’d got rid of the gyppos
Author: Katerina HolubováLocation: BrnoThis happened about four years ago at one of the junior training centers in Brno. Lucie Horváthová, a Rom who today is 22 years old, told me about it. She was studying here to be a baker. "One morning I went to the cloakroom, and four skinheads stopped me. One of them […]
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