Marie Gailova - my first experience of segregation

Marie Gailova has two degrees and speaks several languages. She also belongs to the Czech Republic's Romany minority. Her father came to Prague from a typical Romany settlement in Eastern Slovakia in the 1950s. He was unable to read and write, but was determined for his five children to have a chance in life. All five completed high-school, and all have led successful lives. Marie is no exception. She has devoted years to helping other Romanies to escape from a trap of poverty and discrimination, and currently works as a social worker, one of the key figures in an increasingly successful government programme to improve communication between official bodies and Romanies who need help and support. Here Marie Gailova remembers her first day at school, in the Prague district of Nusle in the 1960s.

"There was a big Romany community in Nusle, where I grew up. Most of them were my relatives. We all lived in the same street - Mecislavova Street. For my first five or six years I didn't even realise that we were different in some way, because I grew up only among Roma. All this changed when I started school. On the first day when we went to register, my parents were vehement that we should be well-dressed and look like the other children. But one thing was very strange. My father had told me: 'When you go to school it will be lovely, you'll have lots of friends.' But when my parents took me to school that day, I was surprised that no-one would talk to me. The next day, I was just as surprised to find that no-one wanted to sit next to me. I asked the other children why, and they said they didn't want to get lice. I didn't know what lice were, but all the same I cried a lot. When I got home my parents told me what the children had meant. I didn't want to go to school any more, and my mum complained to the school's head. Our teacher explained to the other children that they shouldn't talk to us like that. But what happened then was that when I walked out of the school gate, my class mates all fell on me and beat me up for telling on them. I came home bruised, with my clothes torn. The next day all my cousins got their revenge and beat up our whole class. That's how my segregation began."