[2] The Stojkas were horse-traders whose caravan spent winters in Vienna and summers travelling through the Austrian countryside,[3] where the family could trace their heritage for over 200 years.

The first, We Live in Seclusion: The Memories of a Romni, was published in 1988 and was one of the first popular works to make public the issues concerning the Nazi persecution of the Austrian Romani people.

[6] Stojka's works have been compared to those of other Romani holocaust survivors, such as Philomena Franz, Otto Rosenberg, Walter Winter and Alfred Lessing.

Mongo Stojka, the oldest male in the family, published Papierene Kinder: Gluck, Zerstorung und Neubeginn einer Roma-Femilie in Osterreich in 2000.

[14] Her work is rooted in German expressionism and folk art[14] and depicts the death camps as well as "idyllic" pictures of family life in their painted wagon before the Holocaust.

[16] The first, titled "Even Death is Afraid of Auschwitz," depicts her memories of concentration camps, and is composed primarily of black and white ink drawings and comparatively few oil paintings.

The exhibitions in France (Marseille, Paris) “Ceija Stojka, a Roma artist in the century” produced by Lanicolacheur and La maison rouge with the support of the Antoine de Galbert Foundation and the Austrian Cultural Forum inspired the creation of the Fund.

The Fund gathers personalities who, since the essential encounter between Ceija Stojka and Karin Berger (author and film maker) in 1986, contribute to international recognition and promotion of her work.