Bożena Paczkowska (Siwak)

“(…) Life was like that, we used to live out of a suitcase. We used to go on many tours. There were really many concerts. We played not only in one musical group. The groups changed when we were in Terno. Later a lady from Sobótka visited us. Her son, who is Polish, played the clarinet, and she wanted to found a Romany band. And she did it. She died this year. Bu I think she established a Romany group because of her son who loved Romany music very much. She set up the band first here in Wrocław in Impart. So we started a little bit here in Wrocław but later we joined the old group Roma in Estrada Poznańska. Thus, when we came to Poznań we joined Estrada Poznańska and as a result we were in ROMA.(...) My husband plays the guitar and dances. We stayed in Roma for quite a long time. My son practically was brought up in Roma. He was the eldest, but back then I had only him so he used to go on tours with us. Later, when my daughter was born she did not like concerts, or tours. Not very much. Whenever she saw me put on a costume she used to get some kind of a shock. She was small she was not even two years old. She cried a lot so I would leave her with my mom and took only the elder son with me. Many years passed. In 1988 we went first to Italy to record for a film. It was a film called “Torrents of Spring” with Nastassja Kinski and some other actor from America, Hector or something. So we played in the film. The scene was nice. The story was about some kind of gypsy camp. They came to the gypsy camp. We stayed in Italy for a week and then we went to New York on a tour for a month. The film received some kind of award so they invited us to the ceremony and we went there. We were a kind of surprise for the actors. We went to Cannes to France. The actors did not know about our arrival at Cannes. There was a dinner planned and we were supposed to be a surprise for the actors as we played together in the film. It was fun. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we stayed there for a week. During the dinner we entered the hall quietly, there was no stage and it was dark, but the surprise was even bigger because of that. The same band appeared again The actors were really glad. The experience was really great, you know.

We are Catholics, right?. But not all Romany people are Catholics. They can be Jehovah witnesses or of other denominations and they do not celebrate festivals in a spectacular way like us. We have real fun. We get together I mean me, my family, my grandchildren and the whole family, so there can be about 100 people, or over 100 people (..) It is so when we organize holidays here in this hall. Because when there was no hall we used to celebrate holidays at home. It looked like that. Christmas. It was like that. For us Christmas eve is very important. Our mothers sisters have already died. So now it is our generation. Our mothers and sisters instilled the tradition in us so much that it stayed with us. And now we want to teach our children so that the tradition could be handed down on and on. Before all that, the tradition was like that. When our mothers lived it was like that, that we gathered at the eldest sister’s for Christmas. With everybody else that is with children, grandchildren and grand-grandchildren. Everybody used to meet in one flat. They used to put food on the table, break the wafer, stay at the place for an hour or two and move on to another family member, to another sister. As many sisters or brothers there were as many visits. Before we visited all of them it was dawn. And on the first Day of Christmas it got repeated. The visits continued all the festive season long. Now that we have [the Centre in Brochów] we get together because we have a place. So we no longer invite each other but come here all together because there is more space. And of course, everyone brings what they want that is food, vodka obviously, drinks, everything. You know here we have tables so we put everything on and have fun till dawn! (…) [The Day of the Dead] is slightly different at us. We really get ready, get ready everything in the cemetery. So you know, you go to the cemetery clean the graves, do everything that is necessary. You know we do not have the rich graves as in Osobowice. You know. Have you ever been there? They have a slightly different work there. But we try to do our best and we do it a week in advance not just in one day. We live for it because it is the Day of the Dead. There I have my parents, one brother, another brother, father. Here a grave of an aunt, another of a cousin. Yes, it is so because many old gypsies have died. Of all the old gypsies maybe two elderly women and one old man are still alive. Besides them, all others are dead. But many young people have also died. And we live for the day, celebrate the day on All Souls Day, right? And later in the morning we have rich celebrations not just a candle or a flower because the Romany like it posh, so we celebrate it this way. There is a lot of all that. There is real excess, you know. So we sit at the graves, each of us at his family’s grave. But we want to mark it a holiday so then women gather at one place, men at another place to celebrate. There is vodka so it is a bit loud. You know what it is like. But then the priest comes to celebrate the mass so silence falls. And we sit till late in the evening. Till darkness falls. It is their day I mean All souls’. Later when we come back from the cemetery there is a party. We have a drink. A little bit of that. As you drink for dinner. There is nothing wrong with that. The Poles also drink. After the drink we just sing and dance. It is just to show respect to the dead that we remember them. We celebrate it in a joyful way not a sad one. This is the way All Souls Day is celebrated by us”.