Čunek's Roma start a new life in Jeseníky

„We came here around one in the morning, they dropped us and our furniture off in front of the building and we had to cope. The children were crying, we couldn't heat the place, and it was filthy everywhere.“ Jan Kandrač, one of approximately 100 Roma who were recently moved into the Jeseníky district by the Vsetín town hall, recalls the move as he stands on the doorstep of his new home. The town of Vsetín decided the Kandrač family should become the owners of a half-devastated building in a municipality where none of them had ever been before and which they themselves did not choose. There is no running water in the house, and the water in the local well has been classified as contaminated by hygiene officials.

These are the reasons which led minister without portfolio Džamila Stehlíková (who is responsible for minority questions) to try to arrange a financial collection to cover the most necessary repairs to the buildings.

The fate of their inhabitants is extremely uncertain; why, then, did they reject her offer of money?

We didn't understand

Stará Červená Voda is one of those forgotten villages on the border with Poland which experienced its greatest boom just prior to the displacement of its ethnic German population. Today it has approximately 600 inhabitants and nothing much to distinguish it from the drabness of the surrounding communities: a little church, a co-operative store, a pub, and some ruins in which no one has lived…