Ilona Ferková

* 1956

  • “I think my mother came from a poorer family than my dad. She was of five sisters and her father was a musician. My grandmother was a skilful woman, she knew how to take care of her family. She used to go begging, helped in the village. She said the Slovak woman used to ask her to do ironing for them. My grandmother was very pretty, she was fair and all the people in the village knew her. Her name was Maria but everybody called her Marička. When women in the village did their washing, they asked her for help and in return she was given cottage cheese, potatoes. Thus she brought some food home.”

  • “I must say that my father was educated, compared to other Romani in the 1960s. He could read, write and count, divide and multiply, add up and subtract. He read a lot, he read everything, even in the waiting room at the doctor’s, since he often had to go for medicine, he read various brochures and he learned that chamomile was needed, as well as other herbs. My father read it carefully and learned he could earn some money by collecting herbs. He went to collect them every day in summer. He used to collect the climbing ones, the ones on the ground. He always collected full cart and had a drying room at home. From the Léčiva company he was sent paper bags and whenever they were full, he took them to the railway station and sent them to Pilsen. There the bags were collected by the pharmaceutical people and then they sent him money. So my dad was able to make some money in this way.”

  • “They arrived in Prague with the army. When soldiers went home after the war, they stayed in Prague. They saw there was work and they went to ask into a construction company. They stayed, worked on construction sites, lived in a warehouse and this was where they were joined by aunt Irena, Tomáš’s wife and the sister of my father. When they delivered material to construction sites they learned there was a factory called Nábojka in Rokycany, that they needed people and even provided flats. The men went to Rokycany to ask, while my aunt stayed in Prague. They were recruited and they asked the manager whether they might be joined by a family from Slovakia. The manager agreed and the factory provided accommodation. But you know what it’s like, when one family comes, more join in. Gradually there were about five to six families: the Giňas, Mikos, Horváts and others. Many Romani people lived in the camp. Later, when men got married, they moved into the railway carriage colony. There were little flats made of railway carriages, or they lived in a former brick factory, that was where Romani too lived. They lived in such a place, railway carriages from one side, a brick factory from the other. They stayed until 1962-1963, when the colony was pulled down. Later they built the Jižní předměstí [Southern Suburb] school in that place.”

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    český rozhlas Plzeň, 02.03.2017

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Stories of old Romani people were better than TV and the radio

Ilona
Ilona
photo: rodinné album

Ilona Ferková, née Daňová, was born on June 25, 1956, in Rokycany, West Bohemia. She comes from a family of seven siblings, with five brothers and a single sister. Both parents were Romani of Slovakian origin, they met in Rokycany and worked as labourers. Due to chronic health problems, her father had to gave up his job, received disability pension and was a household man. Her mother worked in Armabeton in Hrádek u Rokycan. Until Ilona was five, her family lived in a railway carriage colony with other Romani. She likes most remembering his father, who was very intelligent and often told her stories from the life of Romani people in Eastern Slovakia during WWII. She later used these stories in her literary work, for which she was inspired in 1986 by the Romani scholar Milena Hübschmannová. It was this year when, spurred by her mother, a great singer herself, she founded a women’s ensemble, Amare Neni, specialising in old Romani songs. The ensemble, despite being unique, did not survive the fall of communism. In 1994 she coordinated the project of Romani kindergartens. She worked with parents of children on their personal development. In 1999 to 2003 she lived with her husband in England. After her return to Czechia she became the foster mother of her grandchildren and she is very proud of their education. She has four daughters. She is currently retired but still very active concerning the position of Romani women in society. Since 2017 she is a member of the Manushe association and writes short stories. She publishes with Kher, a publisher supporting Romani authors.