This interview contains discussions of racism, discrimination, the Holocaust, and genocide. Please exercise caution.
What are the similarities between the discrimination against Roma and Sinti Austrians and other marginalized groups in Austria that you’ve seen? What are the differences?
Karin Berger: Austria is shaped by a lot of different ethnicities and cultures. There are—and here I only name the bigger groups— Slovenian, Croatian, and Roma and Sinti living in Austria and they all have different histories. A lot of people also immigrated from Czechoslovakia to Austria in the beginning of the 20th century, particularly to Vienna. They were on the lowest level of the workers; the women were working as cleaning ladies and the men were mostly workers in brick factories. Today, the people from Czechoslovakia are no longer seen in the context of immigration. They are Austrians. This is true for most of the aforementioned groups. With the Roma and Sinti this is different. Most of them moved to Austria in the 19th century coming from Romania, where they lived in bondage. The second big migration wave happened in the 1960s, when Austria needed people to work and asked people to come from neighboring countries, mainly from Turkey and from Yugoslavia. In the Yugoslavian group were also many Roma people. There are still many prejudices about Roma that are written deep into Austria’s society and that are rooted in deep historical layers.
It is obviously a very complicated historical narrative, more so narratives, because all of these stories are both connected, interconnected, and also each their own. How do you try to represent this history in your documentaries, in your movies, and other media?
I worked many times with Ceija Stojka and now I’ve made a film with her brother, Karl Stojka, who died only recently. I had old material from two long interviews that I could use. In many of my projects, I show that an individual biography is deeply connected to history and politics. The final result is a film that’s easier for a greater number of people to understand because it discusses these questions on a personal level. That does not mean that the big picture, ideologies, and abstract questions should not be considered. But, I think you can find all these abstract questions addressed in the biography, enhanced by the fact that someone is able to answer in their own, unique way. That’s one of my main goals. In the middle of the 1980s, I worked with a group of women in a collective to create a project with interviews from women in the resistance against National Socialism. In these interviews, we especially tried to conduct interviews with women from the Slovenian minority in Austria. Slovenians were working together with Yugoslavia during the war in partisan groups, which included women. After the war, the partisans faced discrimination both from official policies and the general population, being called traitors for fighting against the Wehrmacht. But, these partisans fought against the fascists and helped end the war earlier due to their efforts. Yet, they still don’t have a glorious image or reputation in Austria.
Ceija Stojka faced a similar struggle. Roma and Sinti were not only persecuted by the Nazis, but they also suffered intense discrimination after the war. In the 1920s and 1930s, while they were simply practicing their normal lifestyle of traveling with horses and trading, they had to endure distrust and stereotypes from the general population. However, they still had small trade deals with the local population, so the Roma and Sinti were not entirely outsiders. This radically changed during the Nazi period. Even after they returned from the concentration camps, their situation did not improve. They received no sympathy, as the majority of people ignored them. In addition, the establishment of a new economic system threatened their lifestyle as people no longer relied on their handcraft. Overall, Roma and Sinti were not accepted as part of the collective identity of Austria; which is still true nowadays.
I hoped to conduct several interviews with Roma women in the 1980s, but due to societal stigmas and a fear of persecution, this was almost impossible. Only Ceija Stojka with her sister Katharina and the Sintezza Rosa Winter agreed to talk with us. The Roma women did not want to be recognized as Roma, nor did they want to relive the emotional trauma that comes with sharing their personal stories. Even though the situation of the Roma did not look extremely bad on the surface, there was, nevertheless, still a very big gap between Roma and non-Roma people. And even as this gap has decreased slightly in recent years, it still exists.
Why is it important to have specific cultural elements like food and music in a film like Ceija Stojka’s documentary?
It is important because these are parts of her life and I wanted to create a documentary that’s presented in a way that is consistent with Ceija Stojka’s more-or-less everyday life at the time. To cook and to eat has, from my point of view, much more importance for Ceija than for my life. The culture’s a bit different because there is a big emphasis on hospitality. When I came over to Ceija, there was always a pot with food on the stove which was ready. I could have even taken five friends with me and we all would have had enough to eat. It’s a part of Ceija’s identity. She wants to cook for a lot of people, never just for herself. I don’t want to generalize, and I’m speaking only from experiences with Ceija, but when she or somebody in her family spoke about so called gadje families and their cooking habits, she’d mention how they often cook in proportions, meaning that if seven people were coming to a meal, they’d prepare only enough food for seven people. That’d be completely crazy for Ceija. This was something that I wanted to show in the film for both its practical and cultural significance. The second cooking scene in the film shows Ceija cooking chicken, but its significance comes from its relation to the scene before. In the scene before, Ceija’s on a hill in the countryside and she talks about the history of her people living on this hill and getting deported in 1941.The scene truly was about her remembering not just those that lived in this specific area, but her own deportation to the camps, the murders of her relatives and friends during the Holocaust, and the cultural destruction which had occurred. And then, the next scene just shows Ceija cooking. This is vitally important because this transition represents what life really is. To cook and eat is truly life.
What song is Ceija singing at the beginning of the movie? Are there others similar to that one?
I don’t exactly know anything other than that it is a very old song. The scene where she is singing takes place in an area south of Vienna where Ceija’s family would work with horses, as there were large horse markets nearby. The roots of these songs aren’t obvious, as they’ve been developed culturally across time. I had the pleasure of joining her for one of her Christmas parties with the whole family where they sang some of these older songs. It’s important to note that while the songs have a certain structure in their melodies and texts, they are still constantly evolving with new improvisation and ideas continuously flowing. The songs take into account the contexts of daily life, from the events of yesterday to the hopes of tomorrow. They even can feature quarrels and disagreements throughout the song. These songs are also exceedingly difficult. There’s one called “Loli Djili'' which means “the red song.” It’s an incredibly challenging song, where one is required to sing both very high and low and with precision. Overall, it’s remarkably interesting music. Ceija herself composed songs and sang them, though they were not in the style of the older songs.
Can you say more about the general filming process? What were your favorite and least favorite parts?
I really enjoyed our surprise evening film session on the hill I mentioned earlier. The backstory is: my cameraman and I were looking for a place to film, and I was only in this particular place because Ceija’s grandparents had a house in the next village. I wanted to double check if the house still existed and if anyone knew anything about Ceija, her family, or the house. Afterwards, I went with the cameraman just outside the village and we collectively admired this wonderful hill. As we stood on it and looked around, we saw a beautiful lake. We agreed that it would be nice to film something there with Ceija. One day of filming brought us close to the mountain again, and while it initially wasn’t on my mind to go back to the hill, we finished early at the other location. Without much forethought or planning, we all drove to the mountain. As we stopped there, Ceija was noticeably connecting with the surroundings. Ceija told us that she and her parents had been here before in a concentration camp, which was completely stunning to me. I had no idea that this was the location of a camp. We decided to venture up the hill as the sun was setting, meaning that we had to hurry. The film crew ran ahead of Ceija, who was moving slower, to film her as she came up. We filmed Ceija arriving at the top of the hill and her reflections on her history with this place. It was marvelous to witness and to be a part of. However, I got criticism for this scene because critics felt it promoted the romantic stereotype of Roma and Sinti people. We were thinking about this as we were filming and editing and even cut some scenes that we felt looked too choreographed and ingenuine, as we felt the palm reading and talking about Hitler against a black silhouette was playing too much into the romanticized stereotypes of Roma and Sinti culture. My primary rebuttal to the critiques is that this really was a spontaneous, unplanned interview. It wasn’t even a true interview, because as soon as I said one word, Ceija would start talking, I didn’t have to ask any questions.
Have you had many experiences interacting with other Roma people, and if so, would you say that this documentary and Ceija’s life story is an authentic perspective of a typical Roma person during this time period or is Ceija’s story rather unique?
There are many elements in her story that are common throughout the Roma people. She was born in 1933 and still traveled with her family as a kid. While not every Roma was traveling during this time, a large majority still were. In 1939, when the Nazis forbade travel, it completely changed Roma ways of life, as they now were forced to stay in one place constantly. Being deported to concentration—and death—camps was also a tragically common experience for the Roma. However, barely anyone survived. Ceija and her siblings were remarkably lucky to survive and keep their small family group mostly intact. Still, her mother and little brother were both killed, so she still experienced profound losses. After the war, Ceija was young enough to be able to work on building her life and escape extreme poverty. Ceija married a Roma businessman from Hungary who succeeded in working with antiques. It was perhaps not as common for Ceija’s family to attain the sense of financial well-being that they did. As far as Ceija’s children, they shared common experiences with many other Roma children born around the 1950s. They struggled with an absence of belonging, as not only did this generation of Roma not feel a sense of connection to the general population, but they felt they did not belong to the generation that Ceija was in. While Ceija did not go to school in a regular way, she still had a wealth of knowledge and was able to learn in a different way. The following generation did attend schools, but mainly just the lowest levels. The current generation is a little bit different, as they’ve been able to stay in school for much longer than before. There are numerous people throughout Austria who try to help Roma children make it through school, whether through homework help or other means, as the parents of these children might not know how to read or write. In Ceija’s case, her mother did not know how to write. After the concentration camp, Ceija went into a school and proclaimed that she wanted to learn to read and write. Even though she was in a class with younger children and she was much older, her will to learn was so strong that she was able to make it through school. Overall, Ceija had a good life and was not especially poor in the 1970s, though she did experience financial difficulties when she was traveling after the war. Her decision to write books and to tell her story to the public was a huge change for her life. She decided not to hide herself anymore, which was a very courageous thing to do. She decided to work with me, which parts of her family were not too fond of originally. The women and youngest members of the family were only supposed to know how to cook, but she was writing a book, which was perplexing to many of them. But, she maintained her courage and persisted in her writing endeavors.
This segways nicely into our next question about the Ceija Stojka Foundation. I know it is there to honor her legacy and fundamental work that Ceija did throughout her life, but I still wanted to know a little bit more about it. What is its mission and what type of initiatives or projects do they do as a foundation?
The foundation’s main goal is to continue her legacy. We try to gather as much information about Ceija’s life and work as possible to inform others. We don’t have a lot of money, so the label “foundation” is a little bit misleading. When you hear “foundation,” you would think that there is some stock of money to distribute for projects. The foundation was founded when Ceija’s paintings started to be shown in France. Ceija always had little exhibitions throughout Austria, and she also had become known in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France. Some people from Berlin actually made a book and exhibition with her drawings and paintings. I was invited to Marseille and I met a group of women who wanted to put on an exhibition but didn’t have the money for it. They asked me to come show my film and talk with them. When I did this, I met a man from the theater. He had given the book from Berlin to another man in Paris and once he saw the pictures, he exclaimed that he wanted to integrate Ceija’s paintings into his house and create an exhibition of her works. Everything progressed very quickly from there and soon Ceija’s work went on exhibition in Paris. It was a big hit, and there were 52,000 visitors and big articles in Le Monde and so on. From then on, there were exhibitions in Reina Sofia in Madrid, in Malmö, the Netherlands, and other places. There were no exhibitions of this kind in Austria, however. We, as a foundation, did inform the Austrians that there was an exhibition taking place at the Reina Sofia. While the Reina Sofia Museum is very famous, the two articles written about the exhibition, one bigger than the other, did not conjure up much interest. It was during this time that we founded the foundation. There is one Austrian woman who lives in Marseille who was connecting everything. Her efforts were invaluable in creating the foundation, along with the help of all the people from Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and Marseille. We’ve had many projects in the past to display Ceija’s photographs and paintings to inform others of her life and help foster connections between those viewing Ceija’s work. Currently, however, we are not funding any major research projects. While the construction of the foundation was primarily concentrated in France, the foundation is moving its center to Austria. We’ll be continuing to run the foundation similarly to how we ran it before, but we’re trying to have a center in Austria that serves as an information center for others to learn about Ceija, her story, and Roma and Sinti culture and history. In the summer, there will be an exhibition of Ceija’s artwork at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York.
What impact has Ceija Stojka had on your life? How has your involvement with the Roma community and culture affected your life and beliefs? Has it changed you as a person, and if so, how?
It was incredibly exciting for me to meet Ceija. I was worried we would have a more distant relationship, but we turned out to be fast friends. In the beginning of our friendship, we were constantly having fun and visiting people. We weren’t just always talking about the traumas and hard times of Ceija’s life. We progressed from one project to the next, from the first book to the second book, from the first film to the second film. It was our time-tested friendship that gave me the energy to make the second film with her. We were very close emotionally, as I got deep insights into Ceija’s life, her knowledge, and her perspectives on the world. It was astonishing to me that Ceija experienced such horrible atrocities in her life and still lived without hate and not succumbed to bitterness or cynicism. Once, I asked her in an interview (it’s not present in the film) if she hated the Nazis after the war. This was a question Ceija had reflected on in her younger years after the war, and she arrived at the conclusion that she didn’t hate them. This was a major decision for how she wanted to live her life. For Ceija, if she hated the Nazis, she would not have had children and she would not have experienced romantic love again because the hatred would have eaten her up. It was her belief that the Nazis would one day stand before God and God’s judgment would bring justice. God will either judge them or not, but it is not her business. She did not want her mind, body, and life to be dominated by the Nazis and what happened to her. She helped others and was constantly vibrant. You did not get the sense that she had such a hard life. She lived with emotion, positivity, and kindness.
This connects back to the first question about the cultural aspects of the film. I did not want to show Ceija only as a victim of the Nazis. I could have made a film only about Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, and Ravensbrück, and while it would have been interesting, I didn't want to shrink her to this victimhood. I wanted to show her background. The things you see in the film, from music to cooking to faith to her childhood, were all sources that gave her the kind of energy she exuded throughout her life.