Jozef Horváth

The Horváths lived with five other Roma families in a Roma settlement about half a kilometre from the village of Železník. Jozef Horváth, who had three brothers and two sisters, remembers poverty and unemployment. His father earned his living as a blacksmith, a trade that Jozef Horváth and his brothers learned from him. The mother and sons went to sell products from the forge to the farmers; receiving only food in return – as for other casual work. They were paid in cash by the farmers only when they played for them, for example, at a wedding. The school the Roma children attended was two kilometres away and the difficulty was compounded in winter by the fact they did not have any warm clothes. When Jozef Horváth reached school age, he didn’t attend. He describes the poor relations with the non-Roma Slovaks of whom they were afraid, and on the other hand the solidarity between the Roma and the Jews, their mutual assistance and kindness.

At the time Jozef Horváth was taken off to a labour camp he was living with his wife at his father-in-law’s in Kapušany, where many Roma made a living through the lucrative pig trade. A non-Roma acquaintance from the village who had joined the Hlinka Guard came to arrest him; his father-in-law was spared, apparently due to his financial standing. Meanwhile, in Horváth’s native Železník, the local Slovaks stood up for the Roma with the argument that the Roma worked for them. Horváth relates that apart from the Roma they sent with him to the camp a few poor non-Roma men from Kapušany. He was interned for the first time in 1941 or 1942 in Hanušovce nad Topľou in the Petič camp, where he spent perhaps two or three months. He remembers the inadequate food rations, the impossibility of mutual visits and the frequent beatings. It was followed by the camp in Dubnice nad Váhom, which in his words was easier compared to Petič; they collected stones by the river. Later, Roma women and children were interned in Dubnice, but separately from the men. Horváth remembers Jan Lacko from Kapušany and his relative – the two men repeatedly tried to escape. According to Horvath, Jan Lacko killed himself during one attempt when he jumped from a lorry.

Jozef Horváth and his wife had four children during the war. His wife received no money during the roughly eighteen months Horváth spent interned in the camps. After the arrival of the Russians the prisoners scattered and Horváth set out on foot for home, from where he was enlisted to serve in Nitra and Nový Zámky. At that time there were still Germans below the Tatra Mountains, which was why the army was stationed there.

Horváth was discharged from the army in 1946 and left for Bohemia. After the events he had experienced he did not want to go home. He was afraid of the worsening situation and, moreover, in Bohemia it was possible to earn a living. He also remembers the commander from the time of the war who arrested him and sent him to the camp – he then needed his signature on the essential documents to be granted a pension. In conclusion, he says he did not receive any financial compensation for the time spent in the camps.