ARTS OF TOLERANCEDiscussions, Workshops and Performances organized by the Stories Exchange Project in Terezin, 18-19 September 2000Session ThreeHana KozurikováNymburkTalking about these stories, how they help me get new opportunities – . Of course working on the stories helps me develop my own imagination, and teaches me to work and write better. But above all, what it’s given […]
John Erwin
If people know their rights, they will know how they should behave
Monika HorakovaMember of the Czech Parliamentin conversation withJohn W. ErwinDirector, The Stories Exchange Projectat the Czech Ministry of Foreign AffairsPrague1 December 2000Jack ErwinThe last time we were together, Monika, we were in Terezin, for the Stories Exchange Project conference "Arts of Tolerance.” As you remember, one of the participants in the conference, Kumar Vishnawathan, was […]
These people just don’t understand
Author: Workshop VLocation: EastWest Institute – PragueZuzana GaborovaLocal Project Coordinator, Stories Exchange ProjectLegal and Social Adviser, Drom CenterBrnoLast year people in Drom’s house in Bratislavska Street house could work off rent that they owed. They could contribute a certain number of hours cleaning cellars and attics etc. in exchange for the rent. The conditions were pretty bad: […]
I studied with them like any white Czech woman
Zdenka SimovaNymburkSeptember 2000[NOTE: In the Czech Republic a "special school” is a school for children with learning difficulties. Romany (Gypsy) children are assigned to special schools if they fail an examination stressing skills in Czech language and culture.]The following story draws upon the experiences of Mrs. Bila, whom we visited in her house in the […]
I know you can’t compare Lety with Terezin
[Lety was a Czech-administered internment camp for Roma in Southern Bohemia during the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia. The Nazis used a town near Usti nad Labem, Terezin – Theresienstadt in German – as a camp in which to imprison Jews from Czechoslovakia and other countries before deporting them for extermination in AuschwitzEva is talking about ARTS OF […]
He deserves our admiration, gratitude and reverence
Jan HorvathAugust 2000StudenkaThis modest and caring man is especially known to those of us who are involved in things Romany. A poet, humanist and writer, Vlado Olah was born to a musical Romany family in a Romany village near Presov in eastern Slovakia. From early childhood he experienced rejection and poverty in the Gypsy community. […]
Roma as a nation have a right to have our own representatives
Monika HorakovaMember of the Czech Parliamentin conversation withJohn W. ErwinDirector, The Stories Exchange ProjectCzech Ministry of Foreign AffairsPrague1 December 2000Jack ErwinSo what about your story? How did you get to do what you’re doing? You’re a member of the Czch Parliament, a woman, a Rom, not too old: how did this come about?Monika HorakovaThank you […]
These people turn up the volume
Author: Workshop VLocation: EastWest Institute – PragueEva BajgerovaRomany Advisor, Usti nad LabemLocal Project Coordinator, Stories Exchange ProjectThere are problems communicating with — I don’t want to say working-class: with socially weak Roms. They look at us as having become too assimilated. They call me a coconut. That is, that I look like a Rom, I’m dark but inside I […]
These children must be offered equal access
Zdenka Svobodova PragueJuly 2000[In the Czech Republic a "special school” is a school for retarded children one which Romany (Gypsy) children are assigned if they fail an examination which emphasizes skills in Czech language and culture.]I met twenty-year-old Tereza H. on a bus going to her home town in central Bohemia. Two years earlier this […]
They used mallets to break our feet and our legs
Author: Lucie ConkováLocation: Lety u Písku"There used to be wooden huts all over the place,” Mrs. Ruzicková said. “There were fences around them. There was a big house here, too. The man who lived there kept stealing food rations delivered by the Germans and stored them in the cellar.They gave us spinach to eat. They […]
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