Museum of Roma Culture director receives violent hate mail

I must share with you an anonymous letter that was sent to the director of the Museum of Roma Culture, Jana Horváthová, about three days after the neo-Nazi march through Brno. When discussing this letter with people whose sensibilities differ from mine, I have come to understand that many of them conceive of this “patriot” (in other words, this neo-Nazi) as some sort of action hero who is finally putting “inadaptable Gypsies” in their place.

I will leave aside the question of what kind of people make such comments about the Roma, because no matter what those comments are, name-calling always leads somewhere, and beyond its borders something else begins. Invoking the fascist/Nazi legacy, in my opinion, is like spitting in the face of the entire Czech nation, which had to face that very threat during the war.

I believe it is high time that a very clear stance be taken on neo-Nazis so they don’t get out of control like they did 60 years ago. To all the armchair “white Czechs” out there, I wish you pleasant reading. Have a good one and try taking a deep breath the next time you want to throw your hateful ideas at someone.

Here I am reminded of a quote from Karel Kryl: “Too great a devotion to ideals results in your shooting a child with a bag of rum candies in order to fight alcoholism.”

Here is an excerpt from the anonymous letter sent to the director of the Museum of Roma Culture, Jana Horváthová:

“You gypsy filth!

You had your picture taken for a magazine recently. That was a big mistake, because now we know what you look like. We’re going to spray vitriol in your face. I promise we won’t rape you because even a dog wouldn’t want a dirty, stinking gypsy. He would vomit if he touched you.

We’re going to find a pregnant Eržika to jump on and compete to see how far the black abortion will fly. We’re going to flay the skin off of Gypsies while they are alive and use it as rugs to clean our boots on. Filth belongs to filth. No animal shits in its own nest, only gypsies do that!

Hitler was a humanist compared to us. You will soon know what the racism you are fighting against really is. Within 20 years this criminal democracy will end. A new order will begin where there will be no room for gypsy criminals, rapists and thieves. All of Europe will rise up and exterminate this inferior race. We will not gas them like the humanist Hitler did. We will put the gypsy filth into the ovens alive. “Natálka”, that filthy offspring of a criminal who has been convicted 14 times, has already had practice. It won’t help you that a bunch of democrats and gypsy-lovers have put a couple of us away. There are millions of us. There were only a couple of us at Janov. Imagine what it will be like when there will be 10 000 of us. One day, streets will be named after the heroes of Vítkov.

Enjoy the taxes of decent people while you can. You don’t have much time. Learn to live in darkness now. It’s no victory to be blind. Women find me attractive, so at least the last thing your eyes see will be handsome. I’m looking forward to seeing you.

Anonymous”