Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Edita Stejskalová at Holocaust ceremony: Hatred toward Roma children is not a closed chapter of history – Romea.cz

“…hatred toward Roma children is not a closed chapter of history, but a reality we still encounter,” said Stejskalová. News server Romea.cz is publishing her speech in full translation.

Speech by Edita Stejskalová in Hodonín u Kunštátu, 20 August 2026

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Guests,

Thank you for inviting me to today’s commemorative gathering at the site of the former g*psy camp in Hodonín u Kunštátu.

Today marks 83 years from the moment when a mass transport of Roma men, women, and children set forth from here for the concentration and extermination camp in Osvětim [Auschwitz]. Most of them never returned. The camp in Hodonín was, together with the camp in Lety u Písku, one of two locations where the Nazis forcibly concentrated entire families of Roma and Sinti from Bohemia and Moravia.

After the war, silence reigned about this place for a long time – the Roma families themselves were silent. The trauma was passed down without anybody speaking of it.

Two years ago, in 2024, the Czech state adopted a definition of antigypsyism. That was an important step toward perceiving the danger of anti-Roma attitudes. However, we know that a definition, in and of itself, protects nobody. We also need the bravery to call hatred what it is when it happens, and the courage to learn how to work with it in the schools, in the public administration, and in everyday life.

This is not just a distant history. Let’s recall the arson attack on a Roma family in Vítkov in 2009, during which Natálka, who was just two years old at the time, suffered serious, lifelong repercussions. We have encountered derogatory remarks about that hateful incident, or even ones praising the suffering of that Roma child, including in the public space of social media. As Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs, I perceive such cases as a reminder that we must never forget such displays of hatred.

Unfortunately, that case has not been the only one. In April 2019, a married couple assaulted a group of seven school-aged Roma children in the park of the chateau in Lipník nad Bečvou. Their attack was preceded by racist insults, followed by physical assault, slaps, punches, pushing a child to the ground and kicking that child. Several children had to seek medical treatment, and their injuries included concussions, contusions, and cervical spine injuries.

A similarly painful story is that of the Roma children from the Čhavorenge ensemble, led by Ida Kelarová. In 2014, during their summer camp, a man from the neighborhood repeatedly insulted them in racist terms, the children heard him fire warning shots from a pistol, and the assailant even entered the grounds of the summer camp.

I would like to recall the November 2025 case of Roma children traveling from Teplice after a football tournament. They were verbally assaulted by Baník fans. Those children had to exit their train for their own protection. They were from the Mongaguá football club.

These stories remind us that hatred toward Roma children is not a closed chapter of history, but a reality we still encounter.

In addition to open hatred, however, silent hatred also exists – the kind that is not manifested through words, or an attack, but is written into where Roma children grow up and in what conditions. The housing conditions of the Roma population have long been significantly worse than those of non-Roma. According to the available data, specifically, the survey by RILSA, 88.9% of Roma reside in overcrowded households and almost half in socially excluded localities.

This is not just a question of comfort. Substandard housing directly influences health, education, and children’s chances later in life, and poverty is therefore easily transmitted from generation to generation. The child who grows up in poverty and in social exclusion does not just face one disadvamtage, but several at once: worse conditions for education, unstable or poor-quality housing, worse health in the family, and limited opportunities to join the normal life of the school and recreational activities.

I would also like to mention the issue of segregation in education for a moment. In November 2007, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled on the case of D. H. and Others vs. the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic violated the ban on discrimination in relation to the right to education – this was about 18 Roma children from the Ostrava area recommended for enrollment into “special schools” for children with mental retardation between 1996 and 1999. The court found that assigning Roma children in this way had isolated them from the majority-society population, exacerbated their disadvantage, and harmed their future prospects. Despite this, the situation has essentially not changed: today almost one-third of the more than 36,000 Roma pupils in the Czech primary schools attend the more than 130 schools where they comprise more than one-third of the pupils, and even the majority of pupils in 78 of those schools. This state of affairs, according to analyses from the last decade, is essentially not changing.

No Roma child has ever chosen to be born a particular ethnicity, just as the children who, in 1942 [sic – 1943] were transported from here, from Hodonín u Kunštátu, also did not choose to be born a particular ethnicity. No Roma child should have to bear the burden of his or her ethnicity, not in school, not at home, not on the street. No Roma child should experience his or her identity as an obstacle, keeping him or her back, nor as a threat from which he or she has to flee or hide.

In conclusion, permit me to thank the Museum of Romani Culture for caring for this site and to thank everybody attending today’s gathering, especially the descendants of survivors who come here annually to keep the memory of their loved ones alive. I would like to thank Jana Horvathová, director of the museum, for her lifelong work in particular.