Category Archives: Czech Republic

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

LGBT+ Roma

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LGBT+ Roma

David Tišer is a well-known Czech Roma activist. He is the director of the Ara Art organization, which also supports LGBT+ people among the Roma. In his interview, he was asked why some Roma consider queer people ritually unclean and why coming out among Roma can be even harder than in mainstream society.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia: Education, Art, and Roma

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Czechia: Education, Art, and Roma

What is the power of words, culture and art in creating a feeling that one belongs somewhere and can be proud of oneself? This is a question that concerns not only minorities in Czech schools. The way to do this can be social support from the environment and art. For Roma students, it is offered, for example, by the Ara Art organization, which is dedicated to activist culture, or the Kher publishing house, which publishes children’s books on Roma themes. How to ensure that children’s talent and potential do not go to waste?

Roma children make up roughly three percent of all students in Czech schools. However, they are not enrolled evenly. According to PAQ Research data, in 2023 there were approximately 130 segregated schools where Roma made up at least a third of the students.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia and the International Roma Day

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Czechia and the International Roma Day

An article about April 8th, stressing its origins to the historic congress in Orpington, near London, UK, which took place from April 7 to 12, 1971, laying the foundations for international Roma cooperation and bringing symbols of Roma identity.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Liberec: Vandals

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Liberec: Vandals

A vandal damaged a memorial of Roma children from the Czech city of Liberec who were murdered during the Holocaust. The memorial was only erected a year agao.

Shame!

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Prague: International Roma Day

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Prague: International Roma Day

During the Saturday concert at the Prague Jazz Dock, on the occasion of the celebrations of the International Roma Day, the singer, actress and presenter Alžbeta Ferencová, known by her stage name Zea, performed. In an exclusive interview for the first Roma internet television, ROMEA TV, she shared her impressions of the concert and her personal relationship to the celebrations of the Roma identity.

During the evening, Zea sang her own compositions as well as traditional Roma songs that have a deeper meaning for her. She sings in English, Slovak and Romani – each language has a different charm for her. “The most natural thing for me is to sing in English. But with Slovak and Romani, I see that people understand it more, it is more personal,” said the artist. However, she admits that writing lyrics in Slovak gives her more work: “I want the text to have a nice meaning, I don’t want anything quick and easy. I am not that good a lyricist, I have to admit that.”

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia: Workshop on Inclusion

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Czechia: Workshop on Inclusion

The council of Europe organised a workshop on inclusive education for Roma children in the Czech Republic. Nice, but right now, the issue is more the segregation that still revails in aschools in the country.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Irena Biháriová

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Irena Biháriová

Irena Biháriová, the former chairwoman of the Progressive Slovakia party and the first Romni to lead a parliamentary party in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. She entered politics in response to the rise of extremism to protect democracy. On April 6, she will speak at the unique ROMx event, which will present inspiring Romani personalities, their stories and visions for the future as part of the celebrations of International Roma Day in Prague.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Commemoration

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Commemoration

On Saturday evening, Romani students during the BARUVAS meeting in Brno symbolically joined the memorial service for the victims of the tragic fire in the Romani settlement in Veľký Šariš, Slovakia. Each of the twenty-five participants lit a candle and together honored the memory of four small children and their great-grandmother who died in the night fire.

 

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia: Baby Box

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Czechia: Baby Box

Many articles about a a Roma baby boy who was put in a baby box in Jihlava late Sunday evening. He was named František. In the 15 years of the Jihlava baby box’s existence, this is the fourth child and the 273rd in total, said the founder of the boxes, Ludvík Hess.

The boy was put in a minute before 10 p.m. and was wrapped in a red-blue-and-white checkered blanket, otherwise he was naked, said Hess. According to him, Roma children in a baby box are a rarity.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Roma Partisan

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Roma Partisan

Czech Television reporter and presenter Richard Samko arrived at the Junior Radio Club. He talked to presenter Eva Sinkovičová about his work and the new Minor Theatre performance, in which he portrays a Roma hero, Josef Serenko. He fought in both world wars and he later became a partisan commander nicknamed Černý and worked in the Highlands.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Prague – International Roma Day

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Prague – International Roma Day

The International Roma Day celebrations will begin in Prague on April 4th, offering concerts, exhibitions, discussions and a gala evening. This year’s 11th year will be held in the spirit of the theme FUTUROMA, which focuses on the future of Roma culture in society. The celebrations are organized by the ARA ART organization and will culminate on April 8th with a gala evening.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia, the Web and Neo-Nazis

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Czechia, the Web and Neo-Nazis

The Brno Municipal Court today began hearing the case of Igor Mižák, who, according to the indictment, was supposed to have founded and managed the neo-Nazi website White Media. In the past, the website published hundreds to thousands of private documents and personal data, including e-mail correspondence between former prime ministers Bohuslav Sobotka and Vladimír Špidla. Among the victims are also activists fighting against racism and xenophobia, including several Roma. However, the court is not addressing the website’s hateful content due to the US position. Mižák defends himself by claiming that he only rented the website. If found guilty, he faces up to five years in prison.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Czechia, Roma, and Ukrainians

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Czechia, Roma, and Ukrainians

An interview with the coordinator of a facility for children in unfavourable situation who explains that they now have Roma and Ukrainians amongst their client, and that they had to deal with prejudice towards Roma.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia: Neo-Nazi Threats

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Czechia: Neo-Nazi Threats

A video about physical violence against Roma has caused great concern in Písek. The author of the video, who is a teenager who has been identified, and about which the police cannot provide more information, claimed in it that about a hundred extremists would arrive in Písek on Monday, March 17, and would bring order to the city.

“It’s Písek on Monday. At seven in the evening. There were skinheads everywhere here and it was quiet. Now they’re not here and it’s a mess,” the video, which has already been removed from social media, said.

Some Roma did not want to be liked by the threats and wanted to organize their own rally via social media. Michal Mižigár from Písek, however, called for prudence. “Please be prudent, let’s not be scared by the provocateurs from Tiktok,” he said on the social network Facebook.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia, Roma, and the Genocide

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Czechia, Roma, and the Genocide

March 11, 1943, 642 Roma men, women and children were deported to Auschwitz Birkenau from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This was the beginning of the systematic extermination of Roma in that region.

For the majority of Czechoslovak society at the time, this remained on the fringes of interest. Although there were cases where local residents showed sympathy or tried to help, in general, there was little awareness of the fate of the Roma. And after the war, the tragedy of the Roma Holocaust was neglected for a long time. The participation of Czech gendarmes and camp commanders in the genocide of the Roma during World War II was denied for forty years under communism. The taboo was broken after the revolution by historian Ctibor Nečas and journalist Markus Pape, and courageous activists from among Roma also played their part. For example, Jan Hauer, Antonín Lagryn or Čeněk Růžička, all sons of Leti prisoners.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia: Neo-Nazi Threats

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Czechia: Neo-Nazi Threats

A young neo-Nazi openly threatens Roma with violence in a video on TikTok. He says that a group of extremists will arrive in Písek on Monday evening and want to attack Roma. The video quickly began to spread among Roma and raised concerns. The situation is already being handled by the Government Commissioner for Roma Affairs, Lucie Fuková, who is in contact with the police. In response to the threats, some Roma are calling for their own meeting in Písek.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia: Roma Ball

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Czechia: Roma Ball

The Czech National Roma Ball took place at the House of Culture in Mladá Boleslav on Saturday, March 15. Slavo Gaži, Duo band Kladno, Gipsy Mekenzi/Gipsy Kubo and Valerie Stojková provided entertainment for dancing and listening.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia: Memorial

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Czechia: Memorial

On April 2, 2025, the gates of the Roma and Sinti Holocaust Memorial in Moravia in Hodonín near Kunštát will open again after the winter break. This will be the 7th visitor season overall. The exhibition “Stories of Survivors” remains from last year, which presents the fates of Holocaust survivors of Roma and Sinti who were internment in the camp in Lety u Písku in the form of biographical medallions.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Roma and Czechoslovak Socialism

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Roma and Czechoslovak Socialism

Efforts to resolve the issue of coexistence between the Roma community and the majority society started with the newly established independent Czechoslovak Republic in 1918. State policy was primarily bureaucratic and repressive in nature. After 1948 and the rise of the communist party, the position of the Roma in Czechoslovakia deteriorated significantly. This situation then escalated further during the era of so-called normalization. The socialist regime tried unsuccessfully to assimilate the Roma minority.

The article dwell on travellers, of which there were very few in the region, but does not speak much about the resettlement after the war.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Memoirs

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Czech Memoirs

An article about the memoirs of Karolína Kozáková, née Růžičková, published under the title Journey through life in a gypsy wagon. It represent a unique testimony about the internment of Roma in the Ruzyně forced labour camp and their subsequent transport to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp. It is from these memoirs published by the Museum of Romani Culture in the book Memoirs of Romani Women (2004) that the information leaflet prepared by the Prague Forum for Romani History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, for this year’s 82nd anniversary of this tragic event draws. It is the only known eyewitness testimony that captures the internment of Romani people in the Ruzyne forced labour camp.

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