Visiting professor highlights work of Romani artist

When Michaela Grobbel asked a room of people in Taper Hall to describe what they noticed about a portrait of Ceija Stojka, people immediately began to point out that she had numbers on her arms.

Those numbers were tattooed onto her after she first arrived in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Stojka was a member of the Romani, a group of people persecuted by the Nazis and killed by the thousands due to their minority status. The artist, writer and musician had three separate stays in concentration camps, and her art reflects the memories of her time there during her childhood.

Grobbel, a professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Sonoma State University, visited campus on Thursday to speak about Stojka’s life and the impact of her work on the modern world. The event, “Memory Paintings by Romani Artist Ceija Stojka,” was hosted by the German Studies Program at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Grobbel said that Stojka’s paintings are her attempt to bridge the gap between her Romani identity and the dominant culture of Austria, her home country. Stojka struggled as an activist to educate the greater European public about the Romani culture through her art. Much of the Romani culture, which would have been passed on from the older to the younger generation, was lost after a quarter of the Romani people were killed during World War II.

“How many people really know Romani? Are friends with them? Are family of Romani?” Grobbel asked. “I believe very few, and that is why stereotypes keep flourishing.”

Grobbel said these stereotypes of the Romani people being gypsies and thieves persist all throughout Europe, and have led to intense discrimination. As a result, large numbers of Romani have been deported from France, Italy, Germany and other European countries to what is supposedly their “home” countries. Grobbel said the Romani people have also suffered systematic discrimination, including a lack of healthcare and education and forced evictions.

This kind of discrimination is exactly what Stojka experienced and attempted to address in her paintings, Grobbel said. Her family was greatly affected by World War II and Hitler’s occupation of Austria. Stojka saw and felt how the Romani were being depicted and represented through the media.

“Anywhere I am, I paint in my head,” Grobbel said, quoting Stojka. “And anytime, when it is time, I remember, and then the memory gets transferred to paper. It lands somewhere.”

Within her art, Stojka intertwines words and images. Each painting is signed with the numbers tattooed on Stojka’s arm, as Grobbel said Stojka was unafraid to identify herself as a survivor and speak about her experiences.

“The Romani people rely on artists and other people like Stojka to talk about the past and keep the Roma culture alive” Grobel said.