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The European Roma Cultural Foundation -ERCF (www.romacult.org) was informed today about the death of the artist, writer and musician, Ceija Stojka on January 28, 2013.
Ceija Stojka was from the Lovari ethnic group the fifth of six children, her sisters of Karl Stojka and Mongo Stojka, were also writers and musicians. Together with her mother and four of the five brothers she survived the Holocaust and the internment at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Her father in 1941 was deported to the Dachau concentration camp, then he was killed in Schloss Hartheim. In 1943, the whole Stojka family was deported into the Auschwitz Birkenau II. concentration camp, where most of them were executed.
Ceija Stojka survived the Holocaust, but these never forgettable experiences become a central and eternal theme of her artistic work since 1989. Her paintings reflect upon the entrenched sorrow in the bodies and spirit of the victims. There are several books, films and artistic works which are capturing her life.
She was a charismatic author and she wrote the first Roma autobiographical account on the Nazi persecution. The book was published in 1988 with the title “We Live in Seclusion: The Memories of a Romni”. It made the European public aware about the struggle of Austrian Roma in the Nazi persecution. Later on in 1992 she published another autobiographical book called: “Reisende auf dieser Welt /"Travellers on This World". Besides painting and writing Ceija also sang in Romanes.
In 1989, at the age of 56, Ceija Stojka began to paint. Her work has been exhibited in western and eastern Europe and in Japan. In 2005 the Jewish Museum of Vienna organized an exhibition with the title of „ Ceija Stojka, Leben!”. In 2010 for the first time her artworks have been exhibited in the U.S. Her ars poetica declared: „I always try to portray my feelings and memories. I want to show my own world to the people. It is important to understand that, we are all human beings and art allows us to live and exist. Art can demonstrate and connect us„. Her artistic account offers stories and visual representation of trauma as a new means to face with the past in order to start a new and meaningful dialogue and challenge the various forms of discrimination and violence in the present Europe.
Ceija Stoika, was an outstanding Austrian Romani woman, one of the members of The Romani Elders of Europe, and a key figure for the history, art, and literature of Romani culture. She was a role model for the present generation and an inspiration for the future generations of Roma in Europe!
Budapest, January 29, 2013.
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