Margita Lázoková

"My daddy attended the Pol'ana ensemble but he didn't know Czech well. He could speak Slovak, Hungarian and Romani, though. At that time he was asked to help out and to work at the local council. Back then we had the 'National Committees', the system had changed since. We were part of the Brno-center, Brno I district where they had a commission for the gypsy population. The official name was 'Commission for the Re-education of the Gypsy Population'. I saved the invitations to its meetings addressed to my daddy and me. Once, when I was thirteen, he invited me to attend the meeting with him in order to interpret whatever was happening there. He knew what to say, what Roma people needed, but he couldn't tell them in Czech. So I started attending the commission where I then stayed for a long time, both at the times of the Union of Gypsy-Roma, and after it was dismantled."

"Our people - my mum, father, grandma - all commuted on foot to the Brzotín village to work at the farmers'. Hungarians had lived there - noble people who owned palaces and who held the Romani people in high esteem. They invited them for work, the musicians to various celebrations. Brzotín was a village renowned for its musicians. Whatever was happening in there or in the nearby Rožňava, they'd invite musicians from Brzotín. Even the women. My grandma from my mummy's side recalled working as a housekeeper since fifteen years of age at a countess in Brzotín. They were trusted and liked."

"My parents got a farm. Families which moved there were given a farm house unihabited after WW II. They settled in there, had it furnished with the help of engineers from the village. They came over, helped our people out and our guys went to work at theirs. We cooked, did the laundry there - one could say it was a similar life to the settlements in Slovakia. Several families living together, cooking together..."