Ctibor Nečas (ed.): Nemůžeme zapomenout – Našťi bisteras: nucená táborová koncentrace ve vyprávěních romských pamětníků (We Cannot Forget - Našt'i bisteras: Forced labour in concentration camps in the narratives of Romani survivors)

The main part of the book con­sists of rec­ol­lec­tions of wartime per­se­cu­tion relat­ed by 31 Roma from the Czech lands. The book also con­tains a sum­ma­ry of the laws, reg­u­la­tions and leg­isla­tive amend­ments lead­ing up to the trans­port of Roma to the con­cen­tra­tion camps; an intro­duc­tion to the struc­ture of the Auschwitz II — Birke­nau con­cen­tra­tion camp and the so-called Gyp­sy camp; accom­mo­da­tion, food and san­i­tary con­di­tions in the camp; and records of the num­ber of Roma impris­oned and killed. It also includes a pic­to­r­i­al appen­dix con­tain­ing pub­lished pho­tographs of Roma impris­oned or deport­ed dur­ing the Pro­tec­torate, and plans and maps of the con­cen­tra­tion camps at Lety (Písek dis­trict), Hodonín (Blan­sko dis­trict) and Auschwitz II — Birke­nau in Poland. The pub­li­ca­tion con­cludes with a list of terms and slang expres­sions from the con­cen­tra­tion camp envi­ron­ment, a list of lit­er­a­ture relat­ed to the top­ic, and a sum­ma­ry in Eng­lish and Ger­man. The book does not include any edi­to­r­i­al note to explain how the sto­ries were acquired and processed; the title in Czech and in its Romani trans­la­tion refers to the tes­ti­mo­ny and atti­tude of one of the witnesses.

The mem­o­ries from the 1970s to 1990 were col­lect­ed main­ly by the edi­tor of the pub­li­ca­tion, Cti­bor Nečas (1933−2017), but also by Vlas­ta Kladi­vová, Jana Horváthová, née Holomková and Jit­ka Lukešová; one tes­ti­mo­ny was loose­ly tran­scribed by Vlas­tim­il Lud­vík. The tes­ti­monies in the book dif­fer in terms of method­ol­o­gy. Some of them are loose tran­scripts, oth­ers are tran­scripts of tape record­ings, edit­ed answers to a ques­tion­naire, or mem­o­ries writ­ten down by wit­ness­es; in two cas­es they are abridged texts of mem­oirs sent to a com­pe­ti­tion set by the Union of Anti-Fas­cist Fight­ers. There is no name index of the wit­ness­es in the publication.