Prague exhibition honours Roma resistance fighters against Nazism

A new exhibition at the Museum of the Romani National Revival in Prague presents the previously neglected history of Czech and Slovak Roma who fought against the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. Opened on 15 October 2026, the exhibition focuses on the period from the dismantling of Czechoslovakia in 1938 until 1945, and marks a turning point in how Roma are viewed during that era, according to museum director Emil Scuka. More than half a million Roma live in Czechia and Slovakia today, yet until now they appeared in wartime history almost exclusively as victims of the Holocaust.

The Nazi regime murdered approximately 90 percent of Czech Roma in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. However, a large number of Czech and Slovak Roma fought the German occupiers as partisans in resistance groups, as soldiers in the Czechoslovak Underground Army, or in the Defense of the Nation organization. The exhibition presents detailed life stories of 100 of the most significant Roma partisans and soldiers, selected from over 1,400 documented fighters. Radoslav Scuka, the exhibition curator, said: “We found over 1,400 Romani fighters in the archives. From among them, we selected the 100 most interesting stories for this exhibition.”

Forgotten heroes of the resistance

Among the featured figures is Anton Facuna, a sergeant in the American intelligence agency Office of Strategic Services, who was flown to Slovakia in October 1944 on a secret mission. Slovakia was a puppet state of Hitler from 1939 to 1945. Another is Josef Serinek, nicknamed the “Black Partisan from Vysocina,” who escaped the Nazi concentration camp for Roma in Lety and went on to found and command a large partisan unit in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. In 2022, Czech President Milos Zeman posthumously awarded Serinek the Medal for Heroism.

Emil Scuka stressed the importance of recognizing Roma agency during the war. “We were not only victims; we were also heroes,” he said. He added that many people, including Roma themselves, are unaware that Roma fought against Nazism. “Organizing and opening the exhibition was something my generation owed to these Roma heroes and today we are repaying that debt,” Scuka stated. He urged visitors to “bring your children and grandchildren here so they can see for themselves and realize that the Roma have heroes too!”

A marginalized history brought to light

The topic of Roma resistance has been completely marginalized in Czech and Slovak historical writing for decades, according to Emil Scuka. He said that Roma decided on their own to document the fates of their war heroes. Prokop Tomek, a historian at the Military History Institute in Prague, confirmed that he is not aware of any scholarly historical work dealing with Roma resistance against Nazism. Tomek said the number of 1,400 Roma in the resistance or foreign army is not an exaggeration and corresponds to the proportion of the Roma population in Czechoslovakia at the time. He called the exhibition “undoubtedly groundbreaking.”

Many Roma in Czechia and Slovakia still do not publicly acknowledge their ethnic identity, partly due to Holocaust experiences passed down through generations. Czech historians and politicians continue to debate the extent of complicity of Protectorate Czech authorities in the extermination of Czech Roma. A police registration of all Roma, enshrined in law in Czechoslovakia since 1927, facilitated the extermination by the Nazis. The Czech government estimates that approximately 250,000 Roma live in the country today, but in the 2021 census only 21,000 people identified as Roma. Czechia’s population is 10 million, and Roma are among the three largest ethnic minorities by numbers, yet they remain the most socially disadvantaged group with very little political representation.