Description: The first English monograph on the artist Ceija Stojka, an Austrian Roma writer, painter, activist, musician, and survivor of the Holocaust.
What Should I Be Afraid of? presents the work of Ceija Stojka (1933-2013), an Austrian Romni writer, painter, activist, musician, and survivor of the Holocaust. Beginning in the 1980s, Stojka created over a thousand drawings and paintings, whose subjects range from landscapes and recollections of her happy, prewar existence as part of a large horse-trading family to the mounting oppression of the Roma under the Nazi regime. Having survived the three concentration camps Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz as a child, Stojka left behind an oeuvre depicting her personal experience of arrests, exterminations, survival, and liberation, which was shared by millions. In addition to four scholarly essays, this book presents important examples of the artist's oeuvre and a selection of previously unpublished poems. 2023 marks the ninetieth anniversary of Stojka's birth and the tenth anniversary of her passing. This book further celebrates the thirtieth anniversary since Roma were recognized as an official ethnic group in Austria after years of activism during which Stojka stood together with other Austrian Roma to become part of the social majority.Brief description: Stephanie Buhmann is head of visual art, architecture, and design at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York.