Meeting Others

I became one of them

Author: Ivana SimikovaLocation: BrnoThis is my own story. It dates back to my childhood, and my memories of it are still vivid and important to me.I used to spend the summer holidays with my grandmother. The Romani population in her village was quite large and had a positive impact on the life of the place. […]

They went and sat up front

Author: Honza Cerny/Honza HusakLocation: Usti nad LabemHonza Husak is a Rom who lives in Teplice. He is about twenty-seven, and a very nice fellow. When I met him it was friendship at first sight. He had phoned to discuss a short-term association with our office and arrived shortly after that. He started gushing ideas about […]

Sebek, Leader of the Skinheads

Author: Michal SlavikLocation: Usti Nad LabemAt our last meeting in Prague in January we talked about collecting stories from the other side too. I managed to get a story from a skinhead. He is twenty-eight, lives in Bilina, finished high school in Decin and university in Prague, at the Technological University. He is an engineer. […]

You don’t like what you see, right?

Author: Jan VeselyLocation: BrnoThis happened in the spring of 1996. I was serving my term in the army in the music group "Ondrás.”We had come to Písek to give a performance. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we had about two hours to kill. So we decided to get a drink. We found a […]

Why’d you gape at me like that?

Author: Michal KratochvilLocation: BrnoThis encounter with a Rom wasn’t entirely pleasant for me, but it taught me something about how Roms think.Late one evening I went to a tram stop. It was dark, the weather was nasty, and the stop was in the middle of a large housing development, surrounded by woods. It’s generally considered […]

I didn’t know exactly what to be afraid of

Author: Martin ZaplatilekLocation: BrnoThese stories were told by Hanka Veselovska, my pretty girlfriend: a law student.We were sitting on the floor in the kitchen/study of our little apartment in the largest housing development in Brno, drinking mulled apple wine with one of our friends who had been spending a few days with us.At first Hana […]