EXCLUSIVE: Czech President honors partisan of Romani origin in memoriam with medal for heroism
Josef Serinek, a Czechoslovak member of the anti-Nazi resistance, has been given a medal for heroism by Czech President Miloš Zeman in memoriam. The award was received on Serinek's behalf on 28 October, the day of the birth of an independent Czechoslovak state, by Cyril Koky, an official specializing in the agenda of national minorities at the Central Bohemian Regional Authority.
Koky proposed Serinek for the state honor. He was one of eight nominees submitted for consideration by the Czech Senate.
Zdeněk Serinek, the grandson of Josef Serinek, was unable to attend the official ceremony at Prague Castle because he has contracted COVID-19. “This award from the President of the republic honors not just my own grandfather, but all other Romani people, whether partisans or rank-and-file soldiers, who fought during the Second World War to liberate this country. Big thanks go to those responsible for publishing the history of that combat and the actions of the Romani partisans and soldiers during the Second World War. If they had never written about it, we would never have known anything about it,” Zdeněk Serinek told ROMEA TV in an exclusive interview.
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In August 1942, Josef Serinek was imprisoned in the concentration camp at Lety u Písku with his five children and his wife. He experienced abuse there at the hands of the Czech gendarmes and escaped after one month to join the partisans.
Josef Serinek wanted to liberate the camp at Lety, but never managed to do so. He was involved with the birth of the partisan movement in the Vysočina region.
“He was a founding father of the rational partisan movement in our country – there was the university Professor Grňa, Generál Luža, and the Romani driver, Serinek,“ said historian Jindřich Marek of the Military History Institute. Josef Serinek led the Chapayev (Čapajev) Division.
That division was formed by Soviet prisoners of war who had managed to escape. During the liberation of Czechoslovakia, they played an essential role by aiding the Soviet paratroopers.
Josef Serinek’s five children and wife were forcibly transported from the camp at Lety to Auschwitz, from which they never returned. He survived the war and passed away in 1974.
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The historian Jan Tesař recorded the memories of the “Black Partisan”, as Josef Serinek was nicknamed, in the 1960s. He did not return to the manuscript until 40 years later, when he compiled the three volumes entitled Bohemian Gypsy Rhapsody (Česká cikánská rapsodie).
Two other Romani people have previously received Czech state honors. In 2006, President Václav Klaus awarded the Medal of Merit to Roma activist Milan Horvát. The previous president Václav Havel awarded the Medal of Merit in 2002 to Karel Holomek.
