Mgr. Eduard Čonka

I only found out it after graduation. I had an exceptionally good form teacher. And by the fact that I started the school like, at least at that time I had the information that I was the first Roma in that Secondary technical school of constructions. I do not know how long the Secondary technical school of constructions worked next to Engineering school, but I was the first who started there as a Roma. It was only after graduation that I found out that right after the first parents' association, my father gave the professor permission to be strict with me. This is what my father told him: Mr. teacher, if you need to slap him, slap him. I want him to finish school, so he does not go wrong. So, I always had the feeling that the class teacher did not like me, that he was stepping on me and I did not know what. And then at the end he told me, he explained to me why it was so. It was also in his interest the first Roma boy join the school and to finish the school.

When Czechoslovakia was divided, the first problems arose there. That time brought the first layoffs. Whether when companies were privatized or there were other reasons. It is indeed true that the first who lose their jobs, or those who were among the first who lose their jobs, were Roma. On the one hand, those people did not achieve the necessary qualifications and did not have the appropriate education, but the other thing was that other people began to reach for those job offers. I remember that in those eighties, especially between the eighties and nineties, I saw how many people work in Metrostav in Prague. They built the subway. Almost all utilities ... formerly you would once see only a Roma people on the street with a shovel, with a pickaxe. All these low-qualified professions, Rome people began to lose and suddenly found themselves in employment offices. I remember that during one such presentation in the nineties, there was a visit from abroad. When they talked about the Roma community, the mayor said that in a few years, about two to three, from almost 99.9% of the employment of Roma men, this has changed to 90% of the unemployment of Roma men.