Irena Eliášová

"For me, to be a Roma means for children to respect their parents. To respect their parents and their elderly. This is the spirit of being a Roma, and a number of other things. But even if I wanted, there is no way to persuade people to admit they are Roma. And that is wrong." - "In your case, is this related to the use of Romani language?" - "Certainly. Yes, I was just thinking about it. I am terribly grateful to Ms. Milena Hübschmannová for instance, even though I never met her in person. I thank her very much for practically enable us to write in our mother tongue. That is a wonderful thing. I am only sorry that my mummy couldn't live to see it. She was a well-read woman and she'd never had believed someone would be able to speak Romani. A white person speaking Romani perhaps better than myself. I mind, you know. But seriously, Milena Hübschmannová contributed to our language being taught at a university along with all others which is beautiful. Us Romani people, we should really be grateful. I am only sorry for not having known her."

"My husband saved money to save me my first typewriter - Continental. He brought it to me for my birthday and said: 'Here you go and now you can write!' I was eager to write a book about our settlement. However, the family found out; most of all his brother and people at work, saying: 'Well, I need to have this and that written and don't know how to do it.' He said: 'You know, my sister-in-law has a typewriter. She will write it down for you.' This is how it all started. Acquaintances and family coming to our place. My husband was really angry about it. I used to write court appeals. They committed various crimes so they wanted me to write them requests. Once, I even asked for a pardon - and it was granted."