Update in Czech press on Romani burn victim prompts hateful comments

Less than a month ago, the Czech Supreme Court rejected the appeal of the four arsonists who committed a racially motivated attack on the home of a Romani family in Vítkov with Molotov cocktails in 2009. The daughter of the family who was severely burned in that attack, Natálka, is already learning to communicate with her peers at nursery school. Since the start of January she has been attending a nursery school for a few hours each day in the village to which her family moved after the attack. News server Novinky.cz reports that her adaptation to the school is going better than expected.

In the discussion space made available underneath the online version of the article, various racists, xenophobes and those who generally spread hatred against Romani people have presented their opinions as usual. The discussion is full of cynical comments about the burned child as well as lies and malicious gossip about her parents.

Natálka enrolled in the nursery school in mid-2011, but has only now started attending regularly. “In the fall she had to undergo several operations. Natálka always looks forward to going to nursery school, but she doesn’t have any friends there yet. She plays with the teacher and the teaching assistant for the most part,” her mother said.

The director of the nursery school, Simona Novotná, says Natálka is fully capable of getting used to the children’s collective. A personal assistant is also helping her. Natálka will celebrate her fifth birthday this June.

One of the teachers at the school says Natálka has no problems there. “If I didn’t know what Natálka has gone through, I’d say she is a completely normal child. She might be a little more dependent on her mother than usual,” the teacher said, adding that the other children have already asked about Natálka’s facial burns and have been satisfied with the explanation that the little girl has “a boo-boo”.

Natálka’s entry into elementary school will be much more complicated. “Children can sometimes be very mean in what they say, but children this young don’t do that yet,” the nursery school teacher said. Natálka’s mother said a psychologist has recommended Natálka delay attending elementary school. “She’ll go to first grade when she’s seven,” her mother said.

The four arsonists threw Molotov cocktails into the Romani family home in the early morning hours of 19 April 2009. The house was burned to the ground and Natálka, who was not quite two years old at the time, suffered extensive burns over almost 80 % of her body. The best doctors in Ostrava fought to save her life, and Natálka spent almost 10 months in hospital. She has undergone several dozen plastic surgeries and has more ahead of her. Doctors also had to amputate several of her fingers.

Natálka will soon undergo a series of demanding examinations at the Silesian Hospital in Opava because something unidentified has been found in her kidneys. After that she will head to the Teaching Hospital in Ostrava for another plastic surgery, because she has grown a bit since the last one and her artificial skin is starting to be too tight.

Natálka’s mother said the time will come when the girl will be able to ask who caused her these irreparable, serious injuries. “Natálka doesn’t yet know what happened to her. The psychologist says she does not remember the fire at all, that at most she might have just a few flashes of memory. For the time being my daughter just complains sometimes that she lost her fingers somewhere, otherwise she doesn’t worry about it,” Natálka’s mother said, adding that she wants her daughter to learn the entire truth as soon as possible.

While the editors at Novinky.cz regularly erase discussion postings that cross the line, people have repeatedly posted cynical, heartless remarks beneath the article about Natálka, as well as lies claiming that Natálka was severely injured because her parents were busy carrying electronics out of the burning house, or that that they had been storing gasoline there, all claims that have been refuted many times. Here are some examples:

Petr Kos, Varnsdorf

Burn victim Natálka has started nursery school and doesn’t yet know what happened to her???????? Dear Editors, is this April Fool’s Day? I’ll tell you what happened to her, her parents have a new house, money, and a life supported in every possible respect thanks to her burns, which they caused her themselves (televisions come before a child) – they are living much better than citizens who work. I have not read anywhere how Patrik has been compensated for the attack committed against him by more of these people with an IQ of 50, is that not being discussed? Or is that not allowed??

Zbyněk Němeček, Kroměříž

Novinky, it’s really nice that you are writing about burn victim Natálka yet again, but you really don’t have anything to write about and you are pulling out news that’s a year old…we all know what the burned Natálka will grown into and that she will get welfare for the rest of her life and exploit her fate and the state will pay her, while people who were never burned will slave away to pay taxes to the burned Natálka… I recommend the journalists who put out this article from their computer keyboards move in with her and not bother the rest of us with the life of the poor little thing in nursery school.

Eva Sedlakova, Velké Chvojno

I feel sorry for the teachers at that nursery school. I don’t know how many children they have there, but one with a special regime probably takes up a lot of time. If she is to go to normal school someday she should learn something now, mainly she should learn how to live with what happened to her. That’s more important for her than anything else. However, on the other hand, if the family gets a stipend out of this…I don’t have to say anything more, right?

Františka Šimečková, Bruntál

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The exact same thing immediately occurred to me. They are writing about Natalka non-stop, next we’ll be learning what she had for lunch. She is just more or less the victim of an unfortunate accident (her parents forgot about her a bit in the burning house). However, Patrik is the victim of a brutal crime in which the assailants showed him no mercy and he barely survived and no one is writing about it.

Lenka Pátková, Malé Svatoňovice

Once Natálie is able to understand what happened to her, she will certainly ask why she was the only one burned and not her parents. Will her parents tell her straight out that they were carrying electronics out of the house instead of her? Will they tell her that this entire tragedy has become just a profitable business for her thief-father, that he didn’t have to go to jail because of it? Probably not.

Ondřej Felcan, Praha 1

I open up Novinky.cz and look … Natálka once again. I’m afraid to open a can of food.

Milan Jaroš, Jirkov

One day this child will be a protegé whom no teacher will be permitted to give any grade besides an “A” if they don’t want to be labeled a racist.

Emil Rohel, Bruntál

Why aren’t they publishing the fact that the first thing the parents carried out of the house was the electronics and other things?!!! That was confirmed during the trial, they couldn’t have cared less about their own daughter!!!

Jan Foukal, Dolany

No white child would ever receive such care. Her parents definitely never contributed a single crown to the health care system.

Tomáš Slabihoudek, Osek

All of the victims of gypsy terror combined have never received as many articles as this single victim from their ranks. That’s another example of equality.

Luděk Kosina, Chlumec nad Cidlinou

Now the whole nation will be amazed and moved to follow how one teacher pays sole attention to her, while a teacher can easily handle eight of our ordinary white children.

Miroslav Růžička, Pečky

As of 1 January 2012 Mr Drábek introduced a new law on unemployment that will be announced at all the Czech Points to make it impossible to work under the table, they will have to perform community service otherwise they won’t get unemployment benefits this applies to those who have worked their entire lives but it does not apply to the group of those who have never worked at all and those are the gypsies, who even though they never paid a crown into the system live off of it and have everything free of charge everywhere in health care. In my neighborhood at least I don’t see any of those who have long drawn welfare performing community service.

We will close with one positive contribution written in defense of the family:

Eliška Kotásková, Vítkov

Mr Nálepo, the mother of this child suffered burns to both her arms and her chest…You are all complaining that so much has been written about Natálka, but none of you must have read any of it, because all of this – the mothers’ injuries, the financing of their house – was covered there more than once… I have also read articles about Patrik, because whenever there is an article on the topic of our minorities mentioned in a discussion, someone immediately brings Patrik up, so it’s impossible not to know about him…has it never occurred to any of you that the fact that not so much is written about Patrik could be because his parents don’t want it?!

Discussion on news server Novinky.cz is not anonymous. That means the name and town listed for each discussant above is real.