The eye of Ceija Stojka (1933-2013)

Born in Austria, into the Lovara Roma community, Ceija Stojka (1933-2013) is a self-taught artist, author, painter and draughtswoman. A survivor of the Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, where she lived from 1943 to 1945, aged between 10 and 12, she was the first to bear witness to the Nazi genocide of the Gypsies, more than forty years after the events. Today, Ceija Stojka is an internationally recognized artist, akin to the art brut movement, and a key figure in the history of the Roma people and their extermination during the Second World War. The exhibition presented from February 28 to September 21, 2026 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie in Besançon, co-curated with the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, invites the public to discover this woman artist through an approach combining art and history, aesthetics and memory.