Blanka Rejholdová

"Those dads used to come to our house, those were the old gypsies. I greeted them, I respected them. I think they were still hard workers. But their children weren't anymore. They started repeating years at school. I know there were three of them in first year with me, but they didn't go any further. The Roma kids didn't like me. They said I was snotty. I was just different."

"Even back then, the Roma wanted their rights, but not their obligations. That's what my mother never tolerated. She knew that you had to work and work hard. We all have the same chance. Of course, it's harder when you're dark skinned. I've experienced it myself. That sort of... discrimination. I have. But it also helped me and I bounced back to show that I'm not a thief, a cheater, but that I'm a hard worker."

"I met outstanding people here in Prague who showed me the way and helped me on my way. I worked creatively with children, we went to festivals and we were always different from the ones from Prague, Brno, Olomouc. They asked where we were from, from Červený Kostelec, and where it was. We were like Cinderellas. So, thanks to seminars and reviews after the various competitions, I gradually improved my work and my children are today among the best in the Czech Republic. All this, the creation and probably a new direction in contemporary dance, working with children, with props, with words, creating together, it enriches us, me and the kids, it is original. For all this, when I was sixty, a letter came. I couldn't believe it - why should I get an award. I didn't feel like I was doing anything special, but I love doing it."

"I think when mum dies, you realize that mum makes a home. That was cruel. Dad had died, it was horrible, and suddenly mum went to hospital after his funeral and she never came back to us. A telegram came and I was home alone. Mum had died. That was terrible. I ran out. My brother was building a house or something and I had no one to tell and you don't believe it anyway. It was in September and then it was the first Christmas without my parents and I was all by myself. Every brother thought I was with the other one. They already had their families, their kids, their wives. Maybe I didn't even want to go to anyone's house so that I wouldn't bother them. So I was alone in that flat of fourth category. There was a lot of snow outside. I was running into town at eight o'clock instead of eating dinner. There was a toy shop and a railing next to it, and I was holding on it and crying so hard. I was seventeen, I was a young girl. There's a church in the square, people were coming from mass. I cried it off, I went home to my freezing flat and I felt like Robinsonka [a teenage girl hero of a book by Marie Majerová, trans.]."

"If I feel like a Roma woman, or I'll say 'Gypsy' outright ? - I don´t. Although that's probably my father's character. But my mother was wilder, more quick-tempered. But I feel like a Czech. It's probably because of your upbringing, who you meet with. My father was a trained butcher, but when my parents came here, he was a stoker in a textile factory in Náchod for about 20 years. He was a hard worker, but he liked drinking beer. The way I remember mum, she was at home all the time. She had a disability pension, a bad heart and illnesses which I wasn´t aware of at that time. She was very strict with us. We would go to dad sometimes for a 'chat' which sometimes hurt more than a slap. But I don´t mind at all. They didn't punish us. My mum slapped me and that was it, I didn't take it as punishment."

"I went all by myself. I had older brothers who went to their fourth, sixth year, so I don't even know if they took me there at all. We were that independent. I went there alone and sat down and I was watching. The other parents were leading in their child and everyone was crying. I didn't understand why they were crying. I didn't know why. I guess as they had the mum and grandma there, they felt as if they wouldn't break away from them, or something. I didn't understand the crying - no one did anything to them. I was brought up differently and toughened by my siblings."