Ceija Stojka was a particularly resilient woman. As a Roma girl, she survived three concentration camps. Around age 50, she began painting her traumas from scratch. The colorful gouaches, which she called Helle Bilder, burst with life force. Ceija Stojka (1933-2013) was grateful and embraced life despite all adversity.
In contrast, the dark gouaches, the Dunkle Bilder, show the horrors of war. They depict the genocide through marrow and make the genocides taking place today experienceable. Deeply religious as she was, she owed her camp survival in part to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ceija Stojka’s participation in the biennial also highlights a local micro-history.
The land on which St. Paul’s Abbey in Oosterhout was built was originally a stopping place for caravan dwellers. With the construction of the abbey, the camp grounds shifted a bit. Until the camp was disbanded in the 1970s, the friars and Roma were good neighbors who regularly visited each other.
Ceija Stojka, 1995. (photo by Christa Schnepf)
Gouaches.