The third evening of the series of readings ‘When the sun goes down to rest, seize the last ray’ featured the literary works of Ceija Stojka. After the author herself had recited a poem in Romani, the actor Florentin Groll read from her autobiographical books.

This excerpt from ‘We live in seclusion’ (lit. translation) focuses on the arrival at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, to where the 11-year-old Ceija and her mother were sent from Auschwitz in 1944. The procedures on arrival and entry into the camp and their protagonists are described in detail, e.g. the allocation of clothing worn at the camp and sewing on a black triangle as a label for arbeitsscheu (workshy).

Literature

Stojka, Ceija. 1988. Wir leben im Verborgenen: Erinnerungen einer Rom-Zigeunerin. Wien: Picus, pp. 38–4.