Sofia Taikon came from a travelling Romani family in Poland who before the war earned their living by traditional professions, with the women practicing fortune telling and the men trading horses. In 1942, she and her entire family of six were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Sofia was later sent to Ravensbrück, the only member of her family to do so, and completely lost track of her relatives, who were later murdered in Auschwitz. At the end of the war, she was included in an initiative by the Swedish Red Cross and, together with prisoners from Scandinavian countries and people of other nationalities, was taken from the concentration camp to Sweden. She married a Kalderash Rom and became a respected representative of this sub-ethnic group during her lifetime.
At the end of her life, Sofia Taikon recounted her life to writer Gunilla Lundgren in order to share her trauma, especially with the younger generation. Illustrator Amanda Eriksson's impressive and accessible Czech-Romani comics adaptation is a unique testimony to her life story and an extraordinary work for adult and older child readers. The original Swedish-Kalderash edition from 2006 won the prestigious Artists Against Nazism award.
Photo: the author's private archive
