 Sharing the Memories of Roma Holocaust Survivors 9. 12. 2005
On November 7, 2005 the Czech book (Ne)boli ((No)pain), about the memories of WWII Roma Holocaust survivors, was released. The book pulls together the oral histories of Roma Holocaust survivors about their lives during the war and post-war. Some of the survivors whose experiences are documented in the book joined the official launch in Prague at Krasne Ztraty coffeeshop.
People gathered to celebrate the book’s launch, share stories, and listen to a live Roma band, led by the talented Roma musician Milan Senki Korytar. But despite the book’s title and the harshness of the period it is based on, (Ne)boli is not just a heavy read. The book is laced with humorous anecdotes, such as one man’s recollection of being „probably the first Roma man in the Czech Republic to own a Skoda car!“
(Ne)boli shares the stories of survivors who came to the Czech Republic soon after the war ended in 1945 and took the place of the Czech Roma who had lived there before the war and who were exterminated in Nazi concentration camps. „Although all the protagonists of the book have lived in the Czech Republic for more than 60 years, the horrors of war they experienced were in Slovakia, where they were born and raised,“ said Jana Kramarova, the book’s editor. „Their lives are interesting, with a wide range of experiences. They are people who survived a time of war, and who have experienced both communist and democratic regimes. Their stories share the life-experience of the Roma people,“ Kramarova said. The book also contains pictures from the survivor’s family archives.
In a sense, the release of (Ne)boli is a prologue to the monumental work of Milena Huebschmannova, who passed away recently, and her students from the Roma Studies department at Charles University. Huebschmannova and her students compiled a book entitled Po Zidoch Cigani (Gypsies after Jews), which relates the memories of Roma survivors, partisans and soldiers who fought against the Nazi regime during WWII. The two-volume Po Zidoch Cigani, written in Czech and Romany, will be released on January 28, 2006.
Title: (Ne)Boli
Publisher: Clovek v tisni
ISBN: 80-86961-04-4, EAN: 9788086961040
Published: 2005
Title: Po Zidoch Cigani
Publisher: Triada
Published: 2006 January
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