Jana Kokyová

Jana Kokyová is a member of the third generation of Roma and Sinti descendants whose ancestors were persecuted during the Holocaust. She is the niece of Čeněk Růžička, who was the founder and long-time leader of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (VPORH). She is involved in educational activities related to the Holocaust and its redress and organizes memorial ceremonies in Lety u Písku at the site of the former concentration camp. Her grandmother, Alžběta Růžičková, who came from a Romani family in Bohemia, was imprisoned in Lety.

As chair of the Committee, she collaborated on a project of the Museum of Romani Culture called the Center for Roma and Sinti in Prague, where she lectured on programs about prejudice and stereotypes. As a representative of the third generation of survivors, she participated in an educational program about the Holocaust of Roma and Sinti called The Fate of the Růžička Family, or the History of the Lety Camp, in which she presented her family’s history. She regularly participates in a memorial ceremony commemorating the transport of Roma from Prague’s Ruzyně to Auschwitz.

Together with experts from the Prague Center for Romani Histories at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, she created an educational program entitled Testimonies of the Holocaust of Roma and Sinti, which presents her family’s personal experience and is offered to secondary schools in Prague. She participated in the Czech-German conference of the Institute for Contemporary History of the Academy of Sciences, The Heritage of Roma and Sinti Across Generations.

She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Romani Culture.

Foto: Petr Zewlakk Vrabec