Edita Rusnáková

A: Please, compare, how they, your parents, lived with your life in the settlement. R: Well, I lived with those gypsy children, in that settlement. We were deserted from the outside world; we didn´t care at all, what was going on in the village. We cared only about things happening in the gypsy settlement. And they didn´t live in the gypsy settlement, I mean my mother and my sisters. In Rochovce, there wasn´t in those times any gypsy settlement, so they lived together with white people.

For next 4 classes I went to Slavošovce, where I was rather shocked by teachers, because they were doing huge exceptions, they didn´t want any Roma. They gave us worse grades... once I was to read an article at the literature in front of whole class; we used to read in two, one white boy and me. I was almost reciting and he could hardly syllabize. I got one minus and he got one. I will remember this for my whole life...

R: Every time, my mother would buy me half kilo of assortments, grandpa bought me one box of chocolates and I made the tree. I was looking forward to potato salad and schnitzels. A: And how did pass that day, the Christmas Day? R: Well, we were cooking from morning and in the evening the whole family met, those godparents with those kids came to us. We had dinner at us, then we again went to them, there we ate and then watched TV. A: Did you have a TV? R: We didn´t have TV yet, so we went to watch it there.