... These Are Painful Memories, Volume I

The book presents thematically organized excerpts from the narratives of eyewitnesses from the original groups of Czech and Moravian Roma and Sinti. They began settling in the Czech lands in the late 17th century and gradually found a true home here, until most of them were murdered on racial grounds during World War II. These are memories of the pre-war period and the Protectorate era.

Two theoretical chapters provide the historical context for the following chapters, which contain the core of the book—narratives of the respective eras. The publication is the first volume of a planned two-volume work that, from original testimonies with very minimal editorial intervention, pieces together a picture of the almost imperceptible beginnings of the later genocide. These events unfolded during peacetime, that is, within the First Czechoslovak Republic, when the majority society’s relationship with the Romani minority was marked by deeply rooted prejudices and the authorities reinforced centuries-old stereotypes by criminalizing people labelled as “Gypsies.” This approach facilitated the smooth onset of racial discrimination in the Protectorate—at first somewhat veiled, and later the implementation of overt and systematic racist persecution of Roma and Sinti.

The book focuses exclusively on the territory of the Protectorate, thus devoting significant space to accounts of imprisonment in the concentration camps at Lety u Písku and Hodonín u Kunštátu, from which the prisoners were subsequently sent to Auschwitz. The planned second volume will conclude the topic of the genocide of Roma and Sinti from the Protectorate outside its territory, particularly at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, as well as at other locations.

Published by The Museum of Romani Culture.