Olga Fečová

Olga Fečová, née Demeterová, wife of the musician Josef Fečo (born 1942, Kochanovce, Humenné district — died 2022, Krupka). After the war she moved with her family to Prague where she later worked on the railway, in the District Housing Office (OPBH) and in a theatre as a cleaner and laundress. After 1989 she worked as a teaching assistant in a primary school in the Nusle district of Prague. She organised concert tours for the family women’s choir Romane romnija, and with her husband she founded the children’s sing and dance company, Čhavorikani Luma / Children’s World. In her 65th year she completed her middle school education at the Protestant Academy in Prague. With her daughters she devoted herself to foster parenting. She is one of the leading personalities in the Roma women’s group Manushe, and in Krupce, where she now lives, she leads the women’s group Jileha / By Heart. In 2016 she received the award Roma Spirit for her lifelong work for the Roma society, and in 2020 was proposed by the Senate of the Czech Republic for the state honour For Merit.

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© Chad Evans Wyatt

© Chad Evans Wyatt

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How to cite abstract

Abstract of testimony from: HÜBSCHMANNOVÁ, Milena, ed. ​“Po židoch cigáni.” Svědectví Romů ze Slovenska 1939 – 1945.: I. díl (1939 – srpen 1944). 1. Praha: Triáda, 2005, 150 – 156 (ces), 157 – 162 (rom). Testimonies of the Roma and Sinti. Project of the Prague Center for Romani Histories, https://www.romatestimonies.org/en/testimony/olga-fecova (accessed 2/16/2026)

Testimony origin

The interview was likely recorded in the home of Verona Fečová, Olga Fečová’s mother-in-law. She was the main speaker of the interview, while Olga Fečová shared her family’s wartime experience, especially at the end of the interview. As Olga was only three years old at the end of the war, she at least conveyed her mother’s narrative. She and Milena Hübschmann had a long-standing relationship – Olga Fečová’s father was Hübschmannová’s first teacher of Romani. The two women had known each other since Olga was eleven years old. Verona Fečová’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren were also present. The interview is abridged.

Where to find this testimony

Milena Hübschmannová (ed.): ​„Po židoch cigáni.“ I: Svědectví Romů ze Slovenska 1939 – 1945 (“After the Jews, the Gypsies.” Testimonies of Roma from Slovakia 1939 – 1945)

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