Karel Holomek

Karel Holomek (1937, Brno — 2023, Brno), a prominent Moravian Romani dissident and politician, co-founder of the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno. His father, Tomáš Holomek, was a lawyer and is renowned as the first university-educated Romani man in the former Czechoslovakia (see his testimony). Karel Holomek studied mechanical engineering at the Military Academy in Brno. After his studies, he worked at the faculty as an assistant professor before he was expelled from the faculty in 1968 for his statements about the occupation by Soviet troops. Subsequently, he was persecuted and could only work in blue-collar professions. At the turn of the 1970s he worked in the Union of Gypsies-Roma as the head of the blacksmith’s workshop of the Brno Névodrom. In the 1980s he ran a samizdat publishing house focusing on cultural dissent.

After the Velvet Revolution he became very active in the Romani movement. For two years he also represented the Civic Forum as a member of the Czech National Council. He co-founded the Museum of Romani Culture (MRC) and as honorary chairman was for many years the head of the founding Society of Experts and Friends of the MRC. In 1991 he founded the Community of Roma in Moravia and the Romani newspaper Romano Hangos / Romani Voice, which is still published today. He has also published under the pseudonym Karel Oswald, under which he published an autobiographical book about the Holomek family with the title Dávné vzpomínky (Old Memories). In 2002, he was awarded the Medal of Merit, third grade, by President Václav Havel.

© Chad Evans Wyatt

© Chad Evans Wyatt

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How to cite abstract

Abstract of testimony from: HORVÁTHOVÁ, Jana a kol. … to jsou těžké vzpomínky. 1. svazek. Vzpomínky Romů a Sintů na život před válkou a v protektorátu. Brno: Větrné mlýny, Muzeum romské kultury, 2021. ISBN 978−80−86656−45−8, 34, 174 – 181, 667 – 668. Testimonies of the Roma and Sinti. Project of the Prague Center for Romani Histories, https://www.romatestimonies.org/en/testimony/karel-holomek (accessed 3/5/2026)

Testimony origin

The book “…to jsou těžké vzpomínky” (Horváthová a kol.) quotes from the autobiography that Karel Holomek published under the pen name: Oswald, Karel. Dávné vzpomínky. Brno: Šimon Ryšavý, 2010. Parts of the following chapters were printed: Hraničky (1900−1920), Aj cigán z něčeho mosí byt živ, Rodinná rozprava, Nový život na Hliňáku (1917−1918), Přímluva učitele, TOMÁŠ (1924−1932) – Kyjovské gymnázium, Prázdniny, Svátek svaté Lucie (Smrtná neděle).

In the original, direct speech by family members is bilingual — in Romani with Czech translation in brackets. Here, in the passages quoted, the Romani is omitted and only the Czech version is printed. Similarly, only the conversation between Karel Holomek’s father — Tomáš Holomek — and Count Ladislav Seilern is printed in the Czech translation, which is also in the original French version.

The memoirs are accompanied by 2 photographs of the Roma settlement Hraničky on the border of the Svatobořice and Kyjov municipalities. Karel Holomek’s profile is accompanied by a portrait photograph of him taken in 2001 by Chad Evans Wyatt.

Where to find this testimony

Jana Horváthová et al. (eds), …to jsou těžké vzpomínky. Vzpomínky Romů a Sintů na život před válkou a v protektorátu (…these are painful memories. Reminiscences of Roma and Sinti about life before the war and during the Protectorate)

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