My father’s house, my mother’s tears

PRIBEHY: SO HAS, SO HIN (STORIES: WHATWAS, WHAT IS)
A Workshop Script by Robbie McCauley in collaboration with Ethela and IlonaFerkova, Ondrej Gina, Margita Reiznerova, Hana Syslova, and MiroslavMencl
First performed in Czech and Romany atthe Roxy Experimental Space, PragueOctober 12, 13 and 14, 1995
MY FATHER’S HOUSE, MY MOTHER’S TEARS

STORYTELLER/ILONA:
In TocemesMy father built a house of his own.My mother helped him.
A small kitchen, one big roomand a beautiful cellar.
ILONA continues:
When Tiso came to power,he issued a declaration:Romanies must not go anywhere.
They could not even go to the village to buy food.
There were men called National Guards.They were even worse than the Germans themselves. They went to our houses and broke everything up.
They beat Romanies. They shaved our heads – women as well as men.
We had nothing to eat at home.So I went to a store with my friend.Nice people had given us wigs that hadbelonged to Jews. We put them on our heads and went to the shop.
A National Guard caught us.He took us to a house next door and made us burn the wigs.I lit the match myself. But he took a stick and beat me on the back. I ran outside, but my friend stayed there. She was beaten until she was bleeding. Then he told us to go home and not stop anywhere.
People on the street saw that our heads were shaved.But they did not laugh.They felt sorry for us. They were crying. One lady said:
HANA/Town Person:
God, what are those men like? What are they doing to those girls? ILONA:
She took us to her house, and gave us a kind of shawl to put over our heads. And she gave us something to eat.
STORYTELLER II/ETHELA:
So my mother made us haluski.But when she was eating them, tears were falling into her bowl. She was thinking what happened to me getting the food.
CHORUS/Women:
The next day something worse happened.The National Guard came and said to my father:
CHORUS/Men:
You must take your house down, brick by brick. Or you will be killed!
CHORUS/Women:
Poor father.He had to take a tool and destroy his house, destroy the house he had built himself.