Emil Voráč

"I remember when I was already starting my military service, today I'm about 41 years out of the army, but I remember it, so I soon found that R [the letter R] in my file, a marking. And I was asked why I wasn't a member of the Communist Party, and I proudly said I would never be there. And then for half a year in that army I suffered precisely because I refused to join the Communist Party. So I had that experience too. And the R surprised me there. I didn't think much of it, but it was my friend, a non-Roma, who pointed it out to me. He said, 'Look, they really register you here like a gypsy.'"

"I've been through a lot at school too... I'll tell you a story. Once at school, and it was for fun, my friends took the laces out of my slippers. And I was chasing them down the corridor to give me back the shoelaces. And the teacher stopped us, she was called a comrade teacher at that time, and she asked what we were doing running around in the corridor? And she was holding me by my shoulder. I said that the boys had taken my shoelaces and that I wanted her to give them back to me. And she said very loudly, so that everyone could really hear, 'Tell me, Voráč, when did the gypsies have shoelaces? Don't make excuses that they took your shoelaces.' The boys and everybody in the corridor had a great fun about it, but I was very traumatised because the laughing from my friends didn't stop. Even the next day when I came to school, everybody was pointing at me. Gypsies, you have no shoelaces! And they were laughing. It wasn't those kids' fault, we didn't stop being friends. But I was so upset that I didn't go to school for a week after that."