"My mum is Slovak and my dad is also Slovak but his father was a Slovak Roma. My grandma - the mum of my dad - was white. That probably means my dad is half Roma. I am quarter Roma. But my family was never open about having any relationship with Roma people. It's just that my dad was an outstanding musician. He played all thinkable instruments. I remember him playing old Roma songs and."
"As a child I considered Romani people as something I would never want to become. I sensed their exclusion and I was probably born with some protective complex, defending my Roma classmates and feeling sorry for them. Later, I came to the SOS village and was offered to take care of Roma children with a question: 'Would you like dark-skinned children?' I found that question outrageous, saying that if a child needs a mum, it doesn't matter whether it's black, white or purple. By chance I then received all Roma children because they were free and there were plenty of them in children's homes without anyone interested. When they then asked me why I took Roma children and I felt embarassed to answer, I replied with some humor: 'Because they fit to my surname.' My then-name was Cigáňová ('Gipsy'), so I took small Roma children. Over time, I adopted the Roma identity through my children. I tried to bring them up having a positive relationship towards Romani people, taught them Roma songs and dances. Some accepted it and some didn't."
"At that time, there was no knowledge of Roma people. I know that in 1968, there was the Association of Gipsy-Roma but then it vanished. Officially, there was no information. Associate professor Říčan introduced me to Milena Hubschmannová; he was active in these circles. I can't recall reading anything about a Romani painter or a writer. I really don't. It was probably more of an underground culture limited to those in the know. Milena was a liaison officer. She had plenty of friends whom she introduced to other friends and thus extended the circle around her. These people then became close."
Daniela Cincibusová, née Cigáňová, was born on 29 January 1951 in the villague of Zátoň in the Šumava mountains as the eldest of seven children. Her parents were Slovaks who moved to Bohemia after WW II within efforts to populate the borderlands. Daniela’s grandfather was a Roma but the family didn’t have a Romani identity. Daniela’s parents worked in the agriculture and often moved for work. They were believers due to which Daniela received a bad cadre assessment which prevented her from studying to become a teacher. Instead, she trained to become a land surveyor. In the 1970s she become a foster mother in the newly-established SOS children’s village in Chvalčov, and married a baptist priest and a psychiatrist Petr Brázda. Over the years they took care of nine mostly Roma children. At the same time she studied special education in Olomouc. After the tragic death of her husband she moved to Čáslav with her new partner Josef Cincibus whom she married in 1996. The couple brought up twenty-two children. Daniela was active in socially excluded places in the Kutná Hora region. She also worked as a teacher in a Roma school in Kolín and udertook a course in journalism. She published in Kereka, Romano hangos, Amaro lav and Lidové noviny. She was employed as a field worker at the Poschla project in Vsetín and later as a social worker in the Ralsko-Náhlov excluded location. In 2015 she was awarded the Roma spirit prize for her work as a foster mother.
