On the same day (2013)
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On the same day
On the very same day in May, 1937 there were two photographs taken of two girls.

One is called Erzsébet Horváth, a 17-year old Roma girl from Szentgotthárd, the other is the 9-year old Mónika Esterházy at the courtyard of the Esterházy castle in Majk.

On the same day, they were aprroximately 160 km away from each other.

They were not, they could not have been, connected.

One is a day-labourer who belongs to the lowest strata of the society, the other just had her first communion and is the fourth child and the only daughter of Count Móric Esterházy.

In 1944 the 24-year old Erzsébet Horváth was deported to Germany due to her Roma origin.
In 1950 the 22-year old Mónika Esterházy was interned in Kistarcsa without trial and was the prisoner of the forced labour camp for three years.

Erzsébet Horváth never returns from the German concentration camp.
Mónika Esterházy lives in Vienna. She is 85 years old. ∗

They were not, they could not have been, connected.

We are, we must be, connected.

∗ Mónika Esterházy (1928-2015)