Žít bez hořkosti (Life Without Bitterness)

The Story of a German Sinti Who Survived the Holocaust. The reminiscences of a German Sinti witness to the war atrocities committed at Auschwitz and other concentration camps, one of the few survivors from her extended musical family, are coming to the Czech audience thirty-six years after the original German publication (Zwischen Liebe und Hass: Ein Zigeunerleben, 1985).

The harrowing account of Nazi persecution is balanced off by an idyllic description of pre-war life with the family theatre troupe, in which Philomena Franz emerges as a sensitive observer of nature with philosophical tendencies.

The unique Czech edition, whose original autobiographical part was translated by the Roma-studies scholar Eva Zdařilová, is - as opposed to the German edition - supplemented with an extensive interview with the 99-year-old narrator, a new afterword by historian Renata Berkyová, and previously unknown pictorial documentation from the author's private archive, which she had not previously approved for publishing due to traditional respect for the dead.

The cover and illustrations were created by the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM) graduate, painter and curator Ladislava Gažiová, whose work also thematises Romani culture and history.

This book has been published with the kind financial support of the Czech-German Future Fund, the Goethe-Institut, and Bader Philanthropies, Inc.