“auschwitz is my coat,
bergen-belsen my dress
and ravensbrück my vest.
what should I be afraid of?”

… these are the words artist and author Ceija Stojka wrote in one of her most famous poems.

When her biography called We Live in Secret. Memories of a Rom-Gypsy was released, Ceija Stojka became famous as a witness of the atrocities and their aftermath. Ceija Stojka understood it as her task to talk with children and young people about her life.

Ceija Stojka, her mother and four of her siblings survived the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbrück. One of her brothers and many other family members were murdered. Of the 12,000 Austrian Roma and Romnija, a mere 2,000 survived the Nazi regime of terror.

Ceija Stojka often said, “I am afraid Auschwitz might just be sleeping.” This coat was made by a school class that attended a workshop with Ceija Stojka. On one side of it you can recognize fragments from her life story. On the other side are portraits of the students themselves, to show that they stand in solidarity with Ceija Stojka in her fight against racism.

“Our roots are in Austria. It’s not the country’s fault. I love it, and if it hadn’t been that way, we wouldn’t have come back.
I mean: we came back from the concentration camp and didn't even have a roof over our heads—and no one asked us if we needed one either.
That is almost over fifty years ago, but I have never been able to come to terms with it. I still ask myself today: how come? Why? Why did this happen to us? What did we do?!”

Roma and Romnija were forbidden to attend school under the Nazi regime. That didn’t stop Ceija Stojka from learning how to stand her ground. In the late 1980s, she published her life story and raised public awareness for the plight of the Roma and Romnija in Austria. It became a best seller. Ceija Stojka was the first Romni in Europe to break the silence and create awareness for the persecution and murder of Roma and Romnija during the Nazi era—and the marginalization and discrimination today.

Until she spoke out, Roma and Romnija in Austria largely remained invisible and openly discriminated against. Around the time that Ceija Stojka’s book appeared, more and more Roma and Romnija began to proudly claim their identity. They also founded organizations and groups and fought for their rights. In 1993, Roma and Romnija were officially recognized as a minority group in Austria. This status offers legal protection for the minority group and for the language and culture of Roma and Romnija. It also means that the state officially recognizes that Roma and Romnija have always been part of Austria.

During her lifetime, Ceija Stojka was devoted to making sure the mass murder of Roma and Romnija was not forgotten and tirelessly fought for equal rights in present-day Austria. She passed away in 2013 at the age of 79. In her honour, a square in the 7th district of Vienna is named after her.


With an excerpt from:
Ceija Stojka. Director: Karin Berger, AT 1999, Navigator Film.