Štefan Tišer

“So we gathered during communism and felt a real sense, which draw us and it was the issue of Roma rights here. Not to be called gypsies, when in 1974 the OSN declared we belong to Roma nation. Everywhere you could hear just ‚gypsy, gypsy, gypsy‘. I get terribly offended by that expression. Of course it depends, who you say it, right? But when you simply consider the meaning of the word – ‚gypsy‘– that is a liar, dirt and vermin. And today anywhere, at a demonstration you can hear ‚gypsies go to gas chambers...‘ Dirt and vermin. That all contains the word ‚gypsy‘ within. But Roma? When we meet up in the Street and don’t know each other, we don’t say: ‚Hello, gypsy!‘, but ‚Sar džives, Roma?‘ [How are you, Roma?] The elderly used to say that expression, whoever, my great granddad and I carry it within myself. Wherever I went during campaigns I only spoke Roma language. I got most upset that the young ones didn’t understand me. And that is when I swear as we inherited that after our parents. It is our motherly tongue. I am at home here, I feel Czech. But there are many national minorities here. That means Russians speaking Czech too, at official authorities, and so on, it is an official language, but at home they speak Russian and Croats of course speak Croatian. Likewise Germans speak German. No one can take it from them. So why don’t they blame them and they blame us?”

“My name is Štefan Tišer, and currently live in Pilsen. And I very much like remembering lovely holidays at my grandparents, where I had a beautiful childhood and free time, where I learnt about village life as a small baby. My granny loved me a lot. My mummy was glad and of course put me in their custody often enough, I was her first son so of course she worried. But when she found out how my granny loved me, she had absolutely no fear at all. My granny had an oven, where she baked bread and used to wake up with a smell of a freshly baked bread and cow mild and a lump of butter. Until today I feel such nostalgia in my heart and always when I remember granny and granddad, I feel bad. My granddad used to teach me, horses, sheep, pigs, he had them all. And I always felt that I don’t know if I didn’t get it from them, that I had so much feeling, as they helped those, who had nothing a lot. Whatever it was the pig butchery or anything, the always gave food to villagers, who didn’t have much. Granny was a herbalist healing people, right above the oven she had little perches and even at night she used to collect herbs to dry them and use for healing. Influenza, anything. And my granddad was a hard working man. Those were Betlanovce in the heart of the Slovak paradise. There was a castle called Bethlenfalvy, owned by a nobleman, where grandad used to work as a hunter. And he gave his a piece of land for saving his life. He was attacked by a wild boar during hunt and my grandad stabbed him through with a javelin. And we got land and there was a certain fields and he farmed there and later passed it on to the eldest son, who was my granddad.”