Jana Kokyová at the Hodonín u Kunštátu Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Moravia: Politicians who incite the nation against minorities should not be in office

Speaking at the Hodonín u Kunštátu Memorial during Friday’s commemorative ceremony, Kokyová sharply criticized Labor and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka and Senator Miroslava Němcová. According to her, the new CRSP will educate pupils and students, and she said that if it were up to her, she would require some politicians to go there too.

“I am referring to the Instagram post by the Czech Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in connection with his campaign on the forthcoming change to the social benefits system,” Kokyová said. “This social media post makes me afraid. Either this minister has a terrible PR department, or he is a populist who is making sure these stereotypes and prejudices stay alive and well, or there’s a third option, the one I find most frightening:  He finds this statement normal,” she said in a speech that news server Romea.cz is publishing here in full translation.

Jana Kokyová’s speech during the commemorative ceremony at Hodonín u Kunštátu, 18 August 2023

Dear Madame Commissioner, Your Excellencies, dear Mr. Governor, dear Madame Director of the Museum of Romani Culture, dear relatives, dear special guests,

It is a great honour for me to speak here.

In this place, we remember the immeasurable suffering of Romani families who endured horrors we cannot even imagine.

A place where more than 200 prisoners, most of them children, were tortured to death just because of their origin.

To make sure such events never happen again, it is our duty to commemorate, educate about and explain the horrors of the Nazi genocide. It is necessary for society to ask the question of WHY this happened to these people.

The questions of WHY and HOW this happened to these people will be discussed in the future through a new specialized workplace, the Centre for the Roma and Sinti in Prague. My uncle, the late Mr Čeněk Růžička, who was a prominent Romani figure and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, worked very intensively since 2017 to make the Centre a reality. He was an eminent Romani figure, a person who worked to preserve this memory, and a descendant of Holocaust survivors who was largely responsible for the fact that the state bought out the industrial pig farm on the site of the former Gypsy Camp in Lety u Písku. We are all feeling the lack of such an eminent Romani figure today.

The Centre will play a role that has long been missing in the Czech capital. It will disseminate the history of the persecution of the Roma during the Nazi era, when most of the indigenous Roma in Bohemia and Moravia were murdered, because without knowledge of that historical context, nothing will ever change. Unfortunately, the textbooks are silent on this. There will be debates at the Centre on topics that will hopefully lead to softening the sharp edges of the current situation between non-Roma and Romani people. Above all, pupils and students will be educated there, and I would also like some politicians to be required to pay a visit there as well.

I am referring to the Instagram post by the Czech Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in connection with his campaign on the forthcoming change to the social benefits system, where he writes, and I quote: “Anyone who is trying to cheat, or who is able-bodied and doesn’t want to work, we will shine a light on him.” He used a photograph of a Romani man next to this text.

This social media post, ladies and gentlemen, makes me afraid. Either this minister has a terrible PR department, or he is a populist who is making sure these stereotypes and prejudices stay alive and well, or there’s a third option, the one I find the very most frightening:  He finds this statement normal.

So I don’t single out the minister, I should say that such remarks have recently been heard from politicians of whom one would never expect them. We Roma are no longer surprised when the SPD party feeds into stereotypes while it hunts for votes, but when Madame Senator Němcová did so, that personally brought me back down to earth.

In the words of my uncle, I’d like to say that one has no choice but to realize, again and again, how little Romani people mean in this society.

Dear members of the political scene, when you feed into stereotypes and prejudices with statements such as this, how is the majority society supposed to realize how little it takes for tragedies like the Holocaust to happen again? This is not just about the Roma, but about any minority to whom the majority takes a dislike. I think that politicians who incite the nation against minorities have no business being in politics.

Will we never break out of the cycle of populist generalisations and labelling?

Will society never learn the lessons of history??

Thank you.