Ceija Stojka was born in Austria in 1933, the fifth of six children in a family of Romani horse traders. Deported at the age of just ten along with her mother, Sidonie, and other family members, she survived three concentration camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen.
It was not until 1988, at the age of fifty-five, that she felt the need and the necessity to speak out; she embarked on a remarkable project of remembrance and, although considered illiterate, wrote several poignant books in a poetic and deeply personal style, making her the first Romani woman to survive the death camps to bear witness to her concentration camp experience—against oblivion and denial, and against pervasive racism.
Her story extends beyond the writings she published (a total of four books between 1988 and 2005), which very quickly established her as a pro-Roma activist in Austrian society. Starting in the 1990s, she began painting and drawing, even though she was entirely self-taught in this field as well. From then on, she devoted herself to it body and soul, right up until shortly before her death in 2013. Her body of work—comprising paintings and drawings created over the course of some twenty years on paper, thin cardboard, or canvas—consists of approximately one thousand pieces. She has had numerous solo exhibitions in Germany, Austria, Spain, the United States, France, and the Netherlands. Each exhibition has generated public enthusiasm and extensive press coverage: Le Monde, The New York Times, El País, The Guardian, Kunstforum International, Beaux-Arts Magazine, Artpress, Le Journal des Arts... Her works are part of several collections, notably the Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain), the Pinault Collection (France), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden), and the Ludwig Museum (Cologne, Germany), among others.
COLLECTIONS
Collection Florence et Daniel Guerlain (FR)
Collection Marin Karmitz (FR)
Collection DBRM (FR)
Collection Volot (FR)
Moderna Museet, (Stockholm, SE)
Museum of Romani Culture, Brno (CZ)
Wien Museum, Vienna (AT)
Erste Collection, Vienna (AT)
Memorial Site CC Ravensbrück (DE)
Bergen-Belsen Memorial/Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen (DE)
Ludwig Museum, Köln (DE)
MUCEM, Marseille (FR)
Collection Antoine de Galbert, Paris (FR)
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (SP)
FRAC Auvergne (FR)
House of European History, Brussels (BE)
Musée national de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, Paris (FR)
Pinault Collection, Paris (FR)
Warsaw Ghetto Museum, Warsaw (PL)
Shoah Collection, Paris (FR)