Žofi Z-4515 – Lundgrenová Gunilla (2022)

Winter 1942. The carefree childhood of the Romani girl Žofi Taikonová has just come to an early end. Before the war, she traveled through Poland with her parents and siblings, making a living through traditional professions such as fortune-telling and horse trading, but now they are forced to hide from the Nazis in the forests around Warsaw. When someone from the locals reports them, even a family of six ends up behind the barbed wire of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Žofi's left arm is disfigured by the tattooed number Z-4515, she loses her name and soon all her loved ones... Sofia Taikonová (1931-2005), known by her Romani name Žofi, unlike many others, did not become a victim of the systematic physical extermination of the Romani people; she survived until the end of World War II and later found safety and eventually personal happiness in Sweden. Her autobiographical narrative recalls a long-overlooked tragedy of European history. For Romani survivors, sharing their painful memories is often not easy. It took Sofia Taikonová three years to recount her life to writer Gunilla Lundgren and publicly share her trauma. In an impressive yet comprehensible Czech-Romani comic adaptation, a unique testimony and extraordinary work emerges for adult and older child readers.