The Road to Equality
The story of Ceija Stojka's artistic work and her social engagement is a very personal testimony – not only of her own experiences but also of the experiences and fates of many Roma in Europe: from a nomadic life to genocide, and on to the struggle for remembrance and the rights of this minority. Ceija was one of the first survivors to fight both for the memory of the Roma Holocaust and for the equality of Roma and Sinti in her homeland Austria. The movement for civil and human rights, originally initiated by contemporary witnesses, was gradually joined by members of the second and subsequent generations of descendants of Nazi victims. This movement led to the legal recognition of the Roma as an ethnic group and minority in Austria in 1993 [9]. Ceija also fought for the preservation of Austrian Roma culture: for example, she sang Roma songs with a band and spoke in her performances as well as in Karin Berger's documentary Ceija Stojka – Portrait of a Romni (1999) about the significance of Roma traditions and the experiences of the Roma.
[9] Mirjam-Angela Karoly, Dikh He Na Bister! Patrz i nigdy nie zapomnij! [in:] Taras Gembik, Małgorzata Kołaczek, Joanna Talewicz (Hrsg.), Ceija Stojka. Mam wolność. I have freedom, Fundacja W Stronę Dialogu, Warschau 2024, S. 84, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Ceija-Stojka-Mam-wolnosc-I-have-freedom.pdf.
Feminism
Ceija was one of the first Romnja to publicly fight for the rights of their community. By initiating the discussion about the rights of Sinti and Roma as well as the intergenerational trauma, she also gave other Romnja a voice and paved the way for feminism and empowerment within the Roma community. She is undoubtedly a heroine and a symbol of Roma feminism. The street artists and activists Trinidad Reyerta and Noelia Muriana created a mural in 2023 on Pedro Martín Zermeño Street (Cartagena, Spain), which commemorates Romnja from various countries who have distinguished themselves through exceptional artistic or political engagement [13]. The mural was unveiled on May 16, 2023, the symbolic anniversary of the active resistance of the Roma against the Nazis and their attempt to liquidate the "Gypsy camp" in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. In addition to Ceija Stojka, the artists honored in their mural: Bronisława Wajs (Papusza), a Roma poet; Lita Cabellut, a Roma painter whose works are among the most expensive of contemporary Spanish artists; Miryam Amayi, a transgender Roma activist who advocates for human rights and the LGTBIQ+ community; Carmen Amaya, one of the best flamenco dancers in the world; Franciska Méndez Garrido, a well-known Roma singer who can almost be regarded as a symbol of flamenco [14].
[[13] See also: Trinidad Reyerta and Noelia Muriana remember prominent Roma women in a mural in Cartagena, 09/29/2023, http://murciavisual.com/trinidad-reyerta-y-noelia-muriana-recuerdan-a-destacadas-mujeres-gitanas-en-un-mural-en-cartagena/. [14] See also: A mural highlights the courage of Roma women in Cartagena, 09/29/2023, https://www.cartagena.es/detalle_noticias.asp?id=74687.
Ceija Stojka (1933–2013) war eine Roma-Aktivistin, Künstlerin, Malerin, Schriftstellerin und Dichterin.
Die interaktive Arbeitskarte wurde als didaktisches Hilfsmittel für den Schulunterricht entwickelt. Anhand von zehn ausgewählten Informationen über das Leben und Werk von Ceija Stojka können Lehrkräfte die Geschichte der Roma im 20. Jahrhundert vermitteln – von den Erfahrungen des Holocaust bis zum Kampf um Erinnerung und Anerkennung in der Nachkriegszeit.
Texte: Dr. Joanna Talewicz, Dr. Małgorzata KołaczekGrafikdesign: Adriana OmylakKoordination Urszula BijośUnterstützung: Cecylia Jakubczak
Quellen:
1. Ceija Stojka International Association, http://ceijastojka.org.
2. Dikh He Na Bister, https://2august.eu.
3. Taras Gembik, Małgorzata Kołaczek, Joanna Talewicz (Hrsg.), Ceija Stojka. Mam wolność. I have freedom, Fundacja W Stronę Dialogu, Warschau 2024, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Ceija-Stojka-Mam-wolnosc-I-have-freedom.pdf.
4. Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz tylko śpi, Übersetzung: Małgorzata Kołaczek, „Dialog-Pheniben“ 2014, Nr. 16, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf.
5. Sławomir Kapralski, Milczenie, pamięć, tożsamość. Fantazmat „Cygana“ i ambiwalencja nowoczesności, „Ethos“ 2016, Nr. 1(113), S. 185–202.
6. Trinidad Reyerta y Noelia Muriana recuerdan a destacadas mujeres gitanas en un mural en Cartagena, 29.09.2023, http://murciavisual.com/trinidad-reyerta-y-noelia-muriana-recuerdan-a-destacadas-mujeres-gitanas-en-un-mural-en-cartagena/.
7. Un mural destaca la valentía de las mujeres gitanas en Cartagena, 29.09.2023, https://www.cartagena.es/detalle_noticias.asp?id=74687.
Family
The Stojkas, who belonged to the group of Lovara Roma, are an example of a Roma community that was torn apart by the war. Ceija was the fifth of six children of Karl Wackar Horvath and Maria Sidonie Rigo Stojka [4]. Although her legal name was Margarete Horvath, the artist was called Ceija Stojka by her entire family (and by herself – also in her works). Ceija had three brothers – Hans, Karl, and Josef – and two sisters – Maria and Katherina. All the siblings were born at a time when policies toward Austrian Roma were becoming stricter: for example, all Roma in Burgenland were required to register in a special registry called the “Gypsy Register,” and a series of measures were implemented to combat the “Gypsy problem,” similar to those in Nazi Germany.
After the annexation of Austria, the Nuremberg Laws were also introduced there. The Roma were deprived of their civil rights, forced to settle, and their children were no longer allowed to attend school. Despite the enforced settlement and the increasing discrimination against the Roma, Ceija depicts in her work the image of a colorful, carefree, and happy childhood. Stories about her mother and siblings run like a red thread through the works of the artist, which come from different periods of her life – she herself emphasized that family ties were the basis of survival for her and many other Roma. Ceija herself had three children.
[4] https://www.ceijastojka.org/theassociation
Extermination
After the annexation of Austria in 1938, all the provisions applicable to Sinti and Roma in the National Socialist Reich now also applied to the territory annexed to Germany. In 1939, Ceija's family was forced to settle down. In 1941, her father was arrested and deported to the Dachau concentration camp. The mother began to hide together with her six children. In 1942, Ceija's father was murdered in the gas chamber of Hartheim Castle. The following year, after the decree of 29 January 1943 ordering the deportation of all Roma families to the so-called "gypsy camp" in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the entire surviving family was imprisoned in Vienna and later deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There Ceija got the number Z6399 tattooed. Her youngest brother Josef, known as Ossi, died in the "gypsy camp". Later, Ceija, her mother, and her sisters were taken to Ravensbrück, while her two brothers were sent to the Buchenwald and Flossenbürg camps. The last camp Ceija and her mother passed through before being liberated by the British army in April 1945 was Bergen-Belsen. After the liberation, mother and daughter walked back home to Vienna – they were on the road for four months. There, they were finally reunited with the other siblings who had also survived the war [5].
Ceija went through three concentration camps: Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen. According to Monika Weychert, the curator of the exhibition "Domy srebrne jak namioty" (Silver Houses Like Tents) presented in 2013 at the National Gallery of Art Zachęta in Warsaw – the first exhibition in Poland dedicated to the genocide of the Roma – black birds were a frequent motif in Ceija's works from the cycle: Even death is afraid of Auschwitz. In one of the drawings, the black birds are drawn into the swirl of barbed wire, sucked in and devoured by it. They disappear into the vortex, merging with each other and with the wire, until only a black mass remains [6]. Ceija's concentration camp story is also the story of a child who survived the Holocaust and long sought suitable ways to express the immense suffering, fear, pain, and death—i.e., experiences that she had either gone through herself or witnessed in others.
[5] Ceija Stojka's history of imprisonment was traced based on the information available on the website of the International Association Ceija Stojka. https://www.ceijastojka.org/biography.
[6] Monika Weychert, Black Birds of Oblivion [in:] Taras Gembik, Małgorzata Kołaczek, Joanna Talewicz (eds.), Ceija Stojka. I Have Freedom. Fundacja W Stronę Dialogu, Warsaw 2024, p. 33, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Ceija-Stojka-Mam-wolnosc-I-have-freedom.pdf.
The Power of Romnija
In 1986, Ceija met the documentary filmmaker Karin Berger, who not only convinced her to write down her story but also helped her to prepare her memories in the form of a book. Ceija was the first Romani woman to write down her life story shaped by the Holocaust and described in her text how this experience and trauma affected subsequent generations. In her first book, published in 1988, We Live in Hiding: Memories of a Romani Gypsy Woman, she wrote: When we came out, we were sick, completely! The heart was wounded, our head, our soul were sick. [...] Fear, always fear, this is what the children grew up with. And that is why even today they look around and turn back when they walk on the street, you understand, they turn back. Only a person who is afraid turns around! When a person comes out of the camp sick and their head hurts and their soul aches because of the father, because of the sister, because of the brother who stayed there, that person can only bring a child into the world who is wounded in the soul. It comes into the world, you see how loving it is, how beautiful it is, you raise it, love it, kiss it, care for it. It grows up, but this fear that was in you, you pass on to it, through the mother's milk. Later, Ceija published three more books and also released her poems.
[9] Vgl.: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz schläft nur, Dialog-Pheniben Nr. 16/2014, übers. von Małgorzata Kołaczek, S. 69.
Art
For Ceija Stojka, art was a way to bear witness to what she herself and what Sinti and Roma had experienced during the Second World War – at the same time, it was also a form of self-therapy. Although Ceija only began painting at a mature age – she was almost 56 years old – she left behind around 1,500 works for posterity, and her paintings became one of the most important visual narratives of the Roma Holocaust. Her works were exhibited in museums and galleries in numerous European countries as well as in the USA, Canada, and Japan. At a vernissage in the USA in 2010, the artist said: I always try to express my feelings and memories. I want to show people my own world. It is important to me that they understand that we are all human and that art allows us to live and exist. Art represents us and connects us [7].
Tímea Junghaus, the director of the Berlin-based European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) and curator of the first Roma Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007, emphasized that Ceija Stojka's artistic work not only made an enormous contribution to shaping the cultural history of the Roma but also helped to recognize the existence of an independent Roma art.
[7] After: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz Only Sleeps, Translation: Małgorzata Kołaczek, “Dialog-Pheniben” 2014, No. 16, p. 68, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf. [8] Ibid., p. 70.
A Message of Peace
After the war, Ceija Stojka became a symbol of reconciliation and the fight for minority rights. Through her artistic, activist, and educational work, she demonstrated until her death in 2013 the importance of creating spaces where bridges between people are built and a message of peace is spread. To this day, her words resonate both as a warning and as a call to action, an appeal to engage for peace: If the world does not change now – if the world does not open its doors and windows, if it does not create peace, real peace –, so that my great-grandchildren have a chance to live in this world, then I will not be able to explain why I survived Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Ravensbrück [15].
[15] Quote from Ceija Stojka, cited by the organizers of the exhibition Ceija Stojka 1933–2013. I cannot forget – Museum of the City of Łódź and Marek Edelman Dialogue Center https://muzeum-lodz.pl/wystawy_czasowe/ceija-stojka-1933-2013-nie-moge-zapomniec/
End of Silence
Ceija Stojka was one of the first Austrian Roma to break the silence about the fate of the Roma community during the Second World War. By publishing her life story, her social engagement, and her art, she addressed topics publicly that had not been spoken about for decades. In her fight for the remembrance of the Roma Holocaust and its recognition, Ceija was supported by her brothers Hans 'Mongo' and Karl Stojka, both of whom were very active artistically and socially. With their lives and their attitude, the siblings – like many other survivors – refuted the claim that Roma were people who 'lived in the here and now, detached from history.' The lack of interest in the topic of the Holocaust of Sinti and Roma was – both in academia and in politics and society – justified by the assertion that Roma supposedly lived in their own world, did not remember, and did not want to talk about the past.
In this way, the responsibility for European oblivion was shifted to a people that had lost at least half of its pre-war population during the Second World War – around half a million people died in camps and ghettos, were shot on the way or starved to death. Sławomir Kapralski sees this as a devaluation and erasure of historical truth. In his opinion, by claiming that the Roma live out their lives apart from history and in their own world, we are ultimately covertly erasing centuries of contact between Roma and European societies [11]. The researcher also has an answer to why this could have happened: The members of those societies had incurred guilt in these contacts, which is why they are gladly omitted from the official historical narratives [12]. Ceija Stojka and other survivors devoted their lives to the goal of counteracting and preventing this erasure.
[11] Sławomir Kapralski, Milczenie, pamięć, tożsamość. Fantazmat „Cygana“ i ambiwalencja nowoczesności, Ethos“ 2016, Nr 113, S. 189. [12] Ebenda, S. 189.
Rebirth
Ceija Stojka loved sunflowers, which – as an important symbol of life, hope, and the return to nature after the trauma of war – appear repeatedly in her paintings and writings. In her poem E Kamesgi Luludschi (The Sunflower) it says: The sunflower is the flower of the Roma.
It provides nourishment, it is life.
And women adorn themselves with it.
It is the color of the sun.
As children, we ate its delicate,
yellow leaves in spring and its seeds in fall.
It was important to the Roma.
More important than the rose,
because the rose makes us weep.
But the sunflower makes us laugh. [1]
Today, the sunflower is also a symbol of survival and rebirth after the Holocaust for the Roma community. In 2024, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the dissolution of the so-called 'Gypsy camp' in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on August 2, 1944, the initiative for remembrance of the Roma genocide Dikh He Na Bister [2] (in Romani: 'Look and do not forget') declared the sunflower – according to Stojka the 'flower of the Roma' – to be a symbol of the rebirth of life and the resistance of the Sinti and Roma.
[1] The text appeared in a collection of poems by Roma authors: The Dawn of Words: Modern Poetry Atlas of the Roma and Sinti, edited by Wilfried Ihrig and Ulrich Janetzki (Die Andere Bibliothek, Berlin 2018) – according to: Dikh He Na Bister, https://2august.eu/we-are-reclaiming-the-sunflower/. [2] Dikh He Na Bister is an initiative of the International Roma Youth Network ternYpe, which has existed since 2010 and brings together Roma organizations from nine countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Spain, and Poland. The events held every year in Krakow and on the grounds of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as part of the Dikh He Na Bister initiative on August 2, the European Holocaust Remembrance Day for Sinti and Roma, are supported by the organizations of the ternYpe network of the Council of Europe, by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma based in Heidelberg, as well as by many partner organizations. Source: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz tylko śpi, Translation: Małgorzata Kołaczek, “Dialog-Pheniben” 2014, No. 16, p. 68, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf.
Childhood
Ceija Stojka was born in 1933 in Kraubath in Styria, a federal state of Austria. In her autobiography, she wrote about her birth: We were riding in our car, and my mother said to my father: ‘Wackar, I palluni rota padschilli’ – the rear wheel is broken. That was the signal that the labor had begun. My godmother stayed with my mother the entire time until I was born in an inn. The next day, she baptized me, and a small celebration was held on a meadow. The locals, Gadschos (non-Roma – ed. note), joined us, bringing food and drink, and then singing and dancing continued for two days and two nights.
Austria was a very important place for Ceija – it was her home. During the warm months, the family traveled around the area in their wagon, spending the winter in Vienna. In her books and pictures, Stojka depicts a relatively happy childhood despite the increasing discrimination against the Roma in Austria. After the settlement decree, which prohibited the Roma from traveling, the family’s wagon was converted into a small house on a plot near Vienna. Ceija’s father and her brothers had to give up horse trading (a traditional occupation among the Lowara group) and work in factories. After the war, Ceija lived in Vienna until her death.
[3] According to: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz tylko śpi, translation: Małgorzata Kołaczek, „Dialog-Pheniben“ 2014, No. 16, p. 68, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf.
Rebirth
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Transcript
The Road to Equality
The story of Ceija Stojka's artistic work and her social engagement is a very personal testimony – not only of her own experiences but also of the experiences and fates of many Roma in Europe: from a nomadic life to genocide, and on to the struggle for remembrance and the rights of this minority. Ceija was one of the first survivors to fight both for the memory of the Roma Holocaust and for the equality of Roma and Sinti in her homeland Austria. The movement for civil and human rights, originally initiated by contemporary witnesses, was gradually joined by members of the second and subsequent generations of descendants of Nazi victims. This movement led to the legal recognition of the Roma as an ethnic group and minority in Austria in 1993 [9]. Ceija also fought for the preservation of Austrian Roma culture: for example, she sang Roma songs with a band and spoke in her performances as well as in Karin Berger's documentary Ceija Stojka – Portrait of a Romni (1999) about the significance of Roma traditions and the experiences of the Roma.
[9] Mirjam-Angela Karoly, Dikh He Na Bister! Patrz i nigdy nie zapomnij! [in:] Taras Gembik, Małgorzata Kołaczek, Joanna Talewicz (Hrsg.), Ceija Stojka. Mam wolność. I have freedom, Fundacja W Stronę Dialogu, Warschau 2024, S. 84, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Ceija-Stojka-Mam-wolnosc-I-have-freedom.pdf.
Feminism
Ceija was one of the first Romnja to publicly fight for the rights of their community. By initiating the discussion about the rights of Sinti and Roma as well as the intergenerational trauma, she also gave other Romnja a voice and paved the way for feminism and empowerment within the Roma community. She is undoubtedly a heroine and a symbol of Roma feminism. The street artists and activists Trinidad Reyerta and Noelia Muriana created a mural in 2023 on Pedro Martín Zermeño Street (Cartagena, Spain), which commemorates Romnja from various countries who have distinguished themselves through exceptional artistic or political engagement [13]. The mural was unveiled on May 16, 2023, the symbolic anniversary of the active resistance of the Roma against the Nazis and their attempt to liquidate the "Gypsy camp" in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. In addition to Ceija Stojka, the artists honored in their mural: Bronisława Wajs (Papusza), a Roma poet; Lita Cabellut, a Roma painter whose works are among the most expensive of contemporary Spanish artists; Miryam Amayi, a transgender Roma activist who advocates for human rights and the LGTBIQ+ community; Carmen Amaya, one of the best flamenco dancers in the world; Franciska Méndez Garrido, a well-known Roma singer who can almost be regarded as a symbol of flamenco [14].
[[13] See also: Trinidad Reyerta and Noelia Muriana remember prominent Roma women in a mural in Cartagena, 09/29/2023, http://murciavisual.com/trinidad-reyerta-y-noelia-muriana-recuerdan-a-destacadas-mujeres-gitanas-en-un-mural-en-cartagena/. [14] See also: A mural highlights the courage of Roma women in Cartagena, 09/29/2023, https://www.cartagena.es/detalle_noticias.asp?id=74687.
Ceija Stojka (1933–2013) war eine Roma-Aktivistin, Künstlerin, Malerin, Schriftstellerin und Dichterin. Die interaktive Arbeitskarte wurde als didaktisches Hilfsmittel für den Schulunterricht entwickelt. Anhand von zehn ausgewählten Informationen über das Leben und Werk von Ceija Stojka können Lehrkräfte die Geschichte der Roma im 20. Jahrhundert vermitteln – von den Erfahrungen des Holocaust bis zum Kampf um Erinnerung und Anerkennung in der Nachkriegszeit. Texte: Dr. Joanna Talewicz, Dr. Małgorzata KołaczekGrafikdesign: Adriana OmylakKoordination Urszula BijośUnterstützung: Cecylia Jakubczak
Quellen: 1. Ceija Stojka International Association, http://ceijastojka.org. 2. Dikh He Na Bister, https://2august.eu. 3. Taras Gembik, Małgorzata Kołaczek, Joanna Talewicz (Hrsg.), Ceija Stojka. Mam wolność. I have freedom, Fundacja W Stronę Dialogu, Warschau 2024, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Ceija-Stojka-Mam-wolnosc-I-have-freedom.pdf. 4. Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz tylko śpi, Übersetzung: Małgorzata Kołaczek, „Dialog-Pheniben“ 2014, Nr. 16, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf. 5. Sławomir Kapralski, Milczenie, pamięć, tożsamość. Fantazmat „Cygana“ i ambiwalencja nowoczesności, „Ethos“ 2016, Nr. 1(113), S. 185–202. 6. Trinidad Reyerta y Noelia Muriana recuerdan a destacadas mujeres gitanas en un mural en Cartagena, 29.09.2023, http://murciavisual.com/trinidad-reyerta-y-noelia-muriana-recuerdan-a-destacadas-mujeres-gitanas-en-un-mural-en-cartagena/. 7. Un mural destaca la valentía de las mujeres gitanas en Cartagena, 29.09.2023, https://www.cartagena.es/detalle_noticias.asp?id=74687.
Family
The Stojkas, who belonged to the group of Lovara Roma, are an example of a Roma community that was torn apart by the war. Ceija was the fifth of six children of Karl Wackar Horvath and Maria Sidonie Rigo Stojka [4]. Although her legal name was Margarete Horvath, the artist was called Ceija Stojka by her entire family (and by herself – also in her works). Ceija had three brothers – Hans, Karl, and Josef – and two sisters – Maria and Katherina. All the siblings were born at a time when policies toward Austrian Roma were becoming stricter: for example, all Roma in Burgenland were required to register in a special registry called the “Gypsy Register,” and a series of measures were implemented to combat the “Gypsy problem,” similar to those in Nazi Germany.
After the annexation of Austria, the Nuremberg Laws were also introduced there. The Roma were deprived of their civil rights, forced to settle, and their children were no longer allowed to attend school. Despite the enforced settlement and the increasing discrimination against the Roma, Ceija depicts in her work the image of a colorful, carefree, and happy childhood. Stories about her mother and siblings run like a red thread through the works of the artist, which come from different periods of her life – she herself emphasized that family ties were the basis of survival for her and many other Roma. Ceija herself had three children.
[4] https://www.ceijastojka.org/theassociation
Extermination
After the annexation of Austria in 1938, all the provisions applicable to Sinti and Roma in the National Socialist Reich now also applied to the territory annexed to Germany. In 1939, Ceija's family was forced to settle down. In 1941, her father was arrested and deported to the Dachau concentration camp. The mother began to hide together with her six children. In 1942, Ceija's father was murdered in the gas chamber of Hartheim Castle. The following year, after the decree of 29 January 1943 ordering the deportation of all Roma families to the so-called "gypsy camp" in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the entire surviving family was imprisoned in Vienna and later deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There Ceija got the number Z6399 tattooed. Her youngest brother Josef, known as Ossi, died in the "gypsy camp". Later, Ceija, her mother, and her sisters were taken to Ravensbrück, while her two brothers were sent to the Buchenwald and Flossenbürg camps. The last camp Ceija and her mother passed through before being liberated by the British army in April 1945 was Bergen-Belsen. After the liberation, mother and daughter walked back home to Vienna – they were on the road for four months. There, they were finally reunited with the other siblings who had also survived the war [5].
Ceija went through three concentration camps: Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen. According to Monika Weychert, the curator of the exhibition "Domy srebrne jak namioty" (Silver Houses Like Tents) presented in 2013 at the National Gallery of Art Zachęta in Warsaw – the first exhibition in Poland dedicated to the genocide of the Roma – black birds were a frequent motif in Ceija's works from the cycle: Even death is afraid of Auschwitz. In one of the drawings, the black birds are drawn into the swirl of barbed wire, sucked in and devoured by it. They disappear into the vortex, merging with each other and with the wire, until only a black mass remains [6]. Ceija's concentration camp story is also the story of a child who survived the Holocaust and long sought suitable ways to express the immense suffering, fear, pain, and death—i.e., experiences that she had either gone through herself or witnessed in others.
[5] Ceija Stojka's history of imprisonment was traced based on the information available on the website of the International Association Ceija Stojka. https://www.ceijastojka.org/biography. [6] Monika Weychert, Black Birds of Oblivion [in:] Taras Gembik, Małgorzata Kołaczek, Joanna Talewicz (eds.), Ceija Stojka. I Have Freedom. Fundacja W Stronę Dialogu, Warsaw 2024, p. 33, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Ceija-Stojka-Mam-wolnosc-I-have-freedom.pdf.
The Power of Romnija
In 1986, Ceija met the documentary filmmaker Karin Berger, who not only convinced her to write down her story but also helped her to prepare her memories in the form of a book. Ceija was the first Romani woman to write down her life story shaped by the Holocaust and described in her text how this experience and trauma affected subsequent generations. In her first book, published in 1988, We Live in Hiding: Memories of a Romani Gypsy Woman, she wrote: When we came out, we were sick, completely! The heart was wounded, our head, our soul were sick. [...] Fear, always fear, this is what the children grew up with. And that is why even today they look around and turn back when they walk on the street, you understand, they turn back. Only a person who is afraid turns around! When a person comes out of the camp sick and their head hurts and their soul aches because of the father, because of the sister, because of the brother who stayed there, that person can only bring a child into the world who is wounded in the soul. It comes into the world, you see how loving it is, how beautiful it is, you raise it, love it, kiss it, care for it. It grows up, but this fear that was in you, you pass on to it, through the mother's milk. Later, Ceija published three more books and also released her poems.
[9] Vgl.: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz schläft nur, Dialog-Pheniben Nr. 16/2014, übers. von Małgorzata Kołaczek, S. 69.
Art
For Ceija Stojka, art was a way to bear witness to what she herself and what Sinti and Roma had experienced during the Second World War – at the same time, it was also a form of self-therapy. Although Ceija only began painting at a mature age – she was almost 56 years old – she left behind around 1,500 works for posterity, and her paintings became one of the most important visual narratives of the Roma Holocaust. Her works were exhibited in museums and galleries in numerous European countries as well as in the USA, Canada, and Japan. At a vernissage in the USA in 2010, the artist said: I always try to express my feelings and memories. I want to show people my own world. It is important to me that they understand that we are all human and that art allows us to live and exist. Art represents us and connects us [7].
Tímea Junghaus, the director of the Berlin-based European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) and curator of the first Roma Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007, emphasized that Ceija Stojka's artistic work not only made an enormous contribution to shaping the cultural history of the Roma but also helped to recognize the existence of an independent Roma art.
[7] After: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz Only Sleeps, Translation: Małgorzata Kołaczek, “Dialog-Pheniben” 2014, No. 16, p. 68, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf. [8] Ibid., p. 70.
A Message of Peace
After the war, Ceija Stojka became a symbol of reconciliation and the fight for minority rights. Through her artistic, activist, and educational work, she demonstrated until her death in 2013 the importance of creating spaces where bridges between people are built and a message of peace is spread. To this day, her words resonate both as a warning and as a call to action, an appeal to engage for peace: If the world does not change now – if the world does not open its doors and windows, if it does not create peace, real peace –, so that my great-grandchildren have a chance to live in this world, then I will not be able to explain why I survived Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Ravensbrück [15].
[15] Quote from Ceija Stojka, cited by the organizers of the exhibition Ceija Stojka 1933–2013. I cannot forget – Museum of the City of Łódź and Marek Edelman Dialogue Center https://muzeum-lodz.pl/wystawy_czasowe/ceija-stojka-1933-2013-nie-moge-zapomniec/
End of Silence
Ceija Stojka was one of the first Austrian Roma to break the silence about the fate of the Roma community during the Second World War. By publishing her life story, her social engagement, and her art, she addressed topics publicly that had not been spoken about for decades. In her fight for the remembrance of the Roma Holocaust and its recognition, Ceija was supported by her brothers Hans 'Mongo' and Karl Stojka, both of whom were very active artistically and socially. With their lives and their attitude, the siblings – like many other survivors – refuted the claim that Roma were people who 'lived in the here and now, detached from history.' The lack of interest in the topic of the Holocaust of Sinti and Roma was – both in academia and in politics and society – justified by the assertion that Roma supposedly lived in their own world, did not remember, and did not want to talk about the past.
In this way, the responsibility for European oblivion was shifted to a people that had lost at least half of its pre-war population during the Second World War – around half a million people died in camps and ghettos, were shot on the way or starved to death. Sławomir Kapralski sees this as a devaluation and erasure of historical truth. In his opinion, by claiming that the Roma live out their lives apart from history and in their own world, we are ultimately covertly erasing centuries of contact between Roma and European societies [11]. The researcher also has an answer to why this could have happened: The members of those societies had incurred guilt in these contacts, which is why they are gladly omitted from the official historical narratives [12]. Ceija Stojka and other survivors devoted their lives to the goal of counteracting and preventing this erasure.
[11] Sławomir Kapralski, Milczenie, pamięć, tożsamość. Fantazmat „Cygana“ i ambiwalencja nowoczesności, Ethos“ 2016, Nr 113, S. 189. [12] Ebenda, S. 189.
Rebirth
Ceija Stojka loved sunflowers, which – as an important symbol of life, hope, and the return to nature after the trauma of war – appear repeatedly in her paintings and writings. In her poem E Kamesgi Luludschi (The Sunflower) it says: The sunflower is the flower of the Roma. It provides nourishment, it is life. And women adorn themselves with it. It is the color of the sun. As children, we ate its delicate, yellow leaves in spring and its seeds in fall. It was important to the Roma. More important than the rose, because the rose makes us weep. But the sunflower makes us laugh. [1]
Today, the sunflower is also a symbol of survival and rebirth after the Holocaust for the Roma community. In 2024, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the dissolution of the so-called 'Gypsy camp' in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on August 2, 1944, the initiative for remembrance of the Roma genocide Dikh He Na Bister [2] (in Romani: 'Look and do not forget') declared the sunflower – according to Stojka the 'flower of the Roma' – to be a symbol of the rebirth of life and the resistance of the Sinti and Roma.
[1] The text appeared in a collection of poems by Roma authors: The Dawn of Words: Modern Poetry Atlas of the Roma and Sinti, edited by Wilfried Ihrig and Ulrich Janetzki (Die Andere Bibliothek, Berlin 2018) – according to: Dikh He Na Bister, https://2august.eu/we-are-reclaiming-the-sunflower/. [2] Dikh He Na Bister is an initiative of the International Roma Youth Network ternYpe, which has existed since 2010 and brings together Roma organizations from nine countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Spain, and Poland. The events held every year in Krakow and on the grounds of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as part of the Dikh He Na Bister initiative on August 2, the European Holocaust Remembrance Day for Sinti and Roma, are supported by the organizations of the ternYpe network of the Council of Europe, by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma based in Heidelberg, as well as by many partner organizations. Source: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz tylko śpi, Translation: Małgorzata Kołaczek, “Dialog-Pheniben” 2014, No. 16, p. 68, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf.
Childhood
Ceija Stojka was born in 1933 in Kraubath in Styria, a federal state of Austria. In her autobiography, she wrote about her birth: We were riding in our car, and my mother said to my father: ‘Wackar, I palluni rota padschilli’ – the rear wheel is broken. That was the signal that the labor had begun. My godmother stayed with my mother the entire time until I was born in an inn. The next day, she baptized me, and a small celebration was held on a meadow. The locals, Gadschos (non-Roma – ed. note), joined us, bringing food and drink, and then singing and dancing continued for two days and two nights.
Austria was a very important place for Ceija – it was her home. During the warm months, the family traveled around the area in their wagon, spending the winter in Vienna. In her books and pictures, Stojka depicts a relatively happy childhood despite the increasing discrimination against the Roma in Austria. After the settlement decree, which prohibited the Roma from traveling, the family’s wagon was converted into a small house on a plot near Vienna. Ceija’s father and her brothers had to give up horse trading (a traditional occupation among the Lowara group) and work in factories. After the war, Ceija lived in Vienna until her death.
[3] According to: Tímea Junghaus, Ceija Stojka. Auschwitz tylko śpi, translation: Małgorzata Kołaczek, „Dialog-Pheniben“ 2014, No. 16, p. 68, https://fundacjawstronedialogu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/16_DIALOG_WEB.pdf.
Rebirth
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