“I picked up a pen because I had to open myself,
to scream.”
Ceija Stojka, 1933-2013
Ceija Stojka is born in 1933 in Kraubath, Styria (Austria). She is the fifth child of Karl Wackar Horvath and Maria Sidonie Rigo Stojka. In accordance with Romani law, the children take their mother’s family name. The Stojkas are from a line of horse traders, the Lovara, who came to Austria in two main waves of migration : from Hungary and Slovakia in the second part of the 19th century and, from Hungary again in 1956. Deported in March 1943 with her mother and her siblings at the age of nine, Ceija Stojka survives three concentration camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen. She is liberated on the 15th of April 1945.
At the age of fifty-five she breaks her silence and undertakes an extraordinary journey back into her memories. The result are several books of testimony and over a thousand works in ink, gouache and acrylic, on canvas and on paper : the remarkable achievements of an autodidact.
Stojka was the first Romani woman in Austria to bear witness of the camps and to speak out against denial and forgetting, against the anti-Romani racism pervasive in Austria and Europe.
The ensemble she left at her death in 2013 is like a giant journal in which paintings and writings combine to evoke the nightmarish experience of a child who lived through the Porajmos/Samudaripen, the Romani genocide.
Ceija Stojka International Association
Purpose and goals
The Ceija Stojka International Association was created in 2018 to contribute to the knowledge and international influence of the work of Ceija Stojka (1933-2013). The Association gathers personalities who since the essential encounter between Ceija Stojka and Karin Berger (author and film maker)in 1986 contribute to international recognition and promotion of her work. Ceija Stojka’s commitment as an activist, artist and spokesperson, has led to the study and the exhibition of her works internationally. This was made possible thanks to a number of dedicated curators, experts, scientists and friends.
The main goals of the Association are to:
- Assist and advise rights holders in the artwork management
- Reference and protect the artwork and the archives of Ceija Stojka
- Have the art work discovered through exhibitions, publications, lectures, documentaries
- Share and facilitate the research on Ceija Stojka and her work
- Communicate on the international events and publications related to Ceija Stojka artwork
For information about exhibitions, lectures, donations or press inquiries, please contact us at info@ceijastojka.org
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Members
Around the family members Hojda and Nuna Stojka and Simona Anozie and Pablo Stokja, the Fund brings together personalities from the world of art and culture including collectors, filmmakers, journalists, exhibition curators, directors, photographers and academics. Organisation>
Bylaws
Make a donation and/or become a member to our association!
Send an e-mail to info@ceijastojka.org
We will come back to you with the membership form.
Bank Transfer to Ceija Stojka International Association
Oberbank, Vienna, Austria
IBAN : AT64 1500 0044 0106 5596
BIC : OBKLAT2L
- Students, retired, unemployed at at Euro 15,--
- Annual regular individual memberships at Euro 25,--
- Annual extraordinary & institutional memberships at Euro 250,-
- Donations, feel free to contact us for further information
As a member of the association you are invited to the annual general assembly with voting rights. Additionally, members will be regularly informed about activities of the association.
Your membership helps to support costs for communication and administration, exhibits, the website and small projects.