Roma residents of Brno, Czech Republic thank those who stood up to neo-Nazis on 1 May

Eliška Bikárová, Marie Richtrová, Eva Malíková and Božena Horváthová all live in the Roma locality through which neo-Nazis wanted to march on 1 May 2011. They have written an open letter of thanks to the public for protesting the march. Romea.cz publishes the letter in full below.

Open letter of thanks:

We, Roma residents of Brno, would like to thank all from the bottom of our hearts all of the active, good people who came to support us on 1 May 2011 in Brno and for expressing, together with us, that we do not like what the neo-Nazis do or how they think, that we disagreed with their march, especially through streets that are mostly home to members of national minorities and the socially disadvantaged. Together we have shown that we are not afraid of them.

We thank all of the Czechs and people of various nationalities, young and old, for such enormous support. We very much appreciate it! Many of our ancestors, the vast majority of the Moravian Roma and Sinti, died in concentration camps, and we do not want that era to repeat itself. We want to preserve our children’s and grandchildren’s future!

We also thank all of the organizers and people from the BRNO BLOCKS initiative and all the other initiatives who helped organize the protest action. We thank you for your approach, your leadership, and your slogans that helped keep everything in the spirit of equity and nonviolence.

We also thank all of the public authorities and figures who supported the protests, especially those who personally took the initiative to participate: Mr Liška, Mr Kocáb, Mr Lízný, Mr Zlatušek, and others. Our only regret is that practically no local politicians from Brno came to support us.