Hana Költöová

Hana Költöová lived in a settlement with her family in the village of Leles [Hungarian: Lelesz] near the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. Before the war, she did domestic and agricultural work to help support her family. She did laundering and hoeing for which was paid in kind in the form of flour or potatoes, and in this way she was able to provide for her children, who were born in 1932, 1934, 1937 and 1942.

Hana Költöová described the various restrictions that Jews and Roma had to face during the war. Jews were not allowed to leave their houses, and non-Roma inhabitants of the village sang the praises of [Ferenc] Szálasi[1] and [Adolf] Hitler. Eventually, high-ranking officers arrived, assembled all the Jews in the courtyard and took them away. As far as she knew, only one, Robsci, a former classmate of hers, returned with his son after the war. The Roma weren’t allowed to go into town; the postman had to come to them in the settlement. When one of them went shopping,[2] they would put the cash in a bowl of water so the shop assistant would not ​“dirty her hands” with it.

After the Jews, the occupying forces wanted to take away [and kill] the Roma, but they didn’t have time to do so, because they started to flee [from the advancing battlefront].

In 1939, when ​“the Hungarians came”,[3] Hana Költöová’s husband was conscripted into the Hungarian army along with other men who were obliged to perform military service. Her husband Emek served for 36 months; during that time, Hana received news that he had died, but later a new message came that he was in Uzhhorod and would return home. Whenever there was shooting in the village during his absence, she ran with her children to hide on the nearby so-called Bloody Hill, where the local gadjos were also hiding.

After returning from the army, her husband worked on the construction of a dam, but German and Hungarian soldiers started to round up the men, and they had to hide in the woods. One day her husband came home to get food and the village had just been surrounded by soldiers. He tried to escape to the woods, but they shot at him and he fell face down. One of the soldiers told their sons: ​“Your father is dead.” The boys ran crying after their father and the soldiers shot at them too. Hana Költöová tried to defend them, but they hit her until she fell.

Hana’s husband did not die in the end, but was arrested and taken to Végardó. His head was shaved and he was and prepared for transport, but Hana and the other women from Leles managed to persuade a certain manager at a dam construction site to confirm that their husbands were needed at the site. Thanks to this, they were released, but the others were taken away, they did not know where. She particularly mentioned the husband of Raga, a woman from Leles, who was also taken away and never returned.

Hana Költöová also recalled another dangerous situation in which her husband found himself. She said that the Roma were ​“taken to do forced labour on machines.” When her husband stopped working, a German supervisor shouted at him, but Emek did not understand and did not respond, so the German let his dog loose at him. The dog jumped at Emek’s chest and threw him to the ground. Other Roma – Kapata and Hamara – rushed to her husband’s aid and tried to kill the dog. The German soldier wanted to shoot them, but a Hungarian soldier stopped him.

When the front approached, Hana Költöová and her family were afraid of being shot by the Russian soldiers. Hana Költöová’s husband made a white flag out of a sheet and ran towards the Russians, shouting in Hungarian: ​“Peace!” Unlike the Germans, the Russians liked the Roma; they trusted them, ate with them, and slept in their homes. One morning an officer asked Hana’s husband to take his backpack to Kráľovský Chlmec . He brought back flour from the local mill; he could take as much as he could carry.

During the liberation, the Russians arrested Hana Költöová’s husband, among others, thinking that he had been shooting. They took him and the others to the ghetto in Čop. But when they found out that he was Roma, they released him.

[1] Ferenc Szálasi (1897−1946), Hungarian leader of the anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party (Nyilaskeresztes Párt — Hungarista Mozgalom).

[2] According to the reminiscences of other witnesses, they were allowed to enter the town on one day in the week.

[3] The region where the Trebišov district is located was annexed by Hungary after the First Vienna Award in November 1938.