Prague honors Roma resistance fighters against Hitler
An exhibition on Czech and Slovak Romani resistance fighters during Nazi occupation opened at the Museum of the Romani National Revival in Prague on October 15, 2026.
For more than half a million Roma in Czechia and Slovakia, October 15, 2026, marks an important milestone. The exhibition explores the role of Czech and Slovak Romani resistance fighters during the Nazi German occupation and the dismantling of Czechoslovakia from 1938 to 1945.
Until now, Czech and Slovak Roma appeared in the history of World War II almost exclusively as victims of the Holocaust against Roma and Sinti. In the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Nazi Germany murdered approximately 90% of the Czech Roma during World War II.
Roma have heroes, too
The exhibition marks a turning point in how the Roma are viewed during World War II. Museum director Emil Scuka, a lawyer and prominent Czech Roma activist, emphasized this shift in perspective.
Scuka called on attendees to bring their children and grandchildren to show that Roma have heroes too. He noted that the topic had been marginalized in Czech and Slovak historical writing for decades, prompting the Roma to document their war heroes themselves.
Groundbreaking research
The exhibition presents detailed life stories of 100 of the most significant Roma partisans and soldiers from the Czech underground army and resistance groups who fought against the Nazis. Curator Radoslav Scuka revealed they found over 1,400 Romani fighters in the archives.
Among the featured figures is Anton Facuna, a sergeant in the American intelligence agency Office of Strategic Services (OSS), who was flown to Slovakia in October 1944 on a secret mission. Another is Josef Serinek, known as the "Black Partisan from Vysocina," who escaped from the Nazi concentration camp for Roma in Lety and founded the Capajev-Cerny partisan unit.
In 2022, Czech President Milos Zeman posthumously awarded Serinek the Medal for Heroism. Historian Jan Tesar documented Serinek's memories in his three-volume book "Ceska cikanska rapsodie" (Czech Gypsy Rhapsody). Military historian Prokop Tomek called the exhibition "undoubtedly groundbreaking."
Identity struggles
Many Roma in Czechia and Slovakia still do not publicly acknowledge their ethnic identity, partly due to intergenerational trauma from the Holocaust. The police registration of all Roma, enshrined in Czechoslovak law since 1927, facilitated their extermination by the Nazis.
While approximately 250,000 Roma are estimated to live in Czechia today, only 21,000 identified as Roma in the 2021 census. Despite being among the three largest ethnic minorities, they remain the most socially disadvantaged group with very little political representation.
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