Ladislav Dudi-Koťo

Ladislav Dudi-Koťo grew up in the village of Snina in eastern Slovakia. His father was a blacksmith and had moved to Snina from Volov. He was therefore known as Voloučak. His surname was originally only Dudi, but during the First World War his commanding officer was named Koťo, and he gave him his surname. Ladislav’s father had to enlist in 1911; apart from half a year in 1913, he served in the army and then at the front for seven years. Ladislav had two sisters and five brothers.

In October 1944, when Ladislav Dudi-Kot’o was six years old, he and his family were deported to the camp at Dubnica nad Váhom. The Germans were mobilising in eastern Slovakia at the time, moving to the front in the east, and needed Ladislav’s father’s services as a blacksmith. But he refused them because he did not have enough iron. In retaliation for the refusal, the family had to leave their home. With only the bare necessities, they moved in with their maternal grandfather at Bielá nad Cirochou. After three days, his father returned to the house in Snina for food and valuables, but was arrested and taken to Prešov. The following day Ladislav, his siblings and mother were also arrested. They were also deported first to Prešov, where they were reunited with their father. They then travelled for many days on wagons to Dubnica nad Váhom, where they had to line up and the Germans selected able-bodied men, who were then taken away. Among them were Ladislav’s brothers Dzurja and Jozef known as Loulo. The others walked to Dubnica, where they arrived on 2 November 1944.

Ladislav Dudi-Koťo recalled that there were 16 barracks in the camp, but only 13 of them had beds. There were 45 people in each of the barracks; the men were separated from the women and children. Ladislav’s family had three beds, and they slept four to a bed. The conditions were harsh; heating was not allowed apart from two or three hours a day and there was a shortage of food: soup and a piece of bread at midday, coffee and another piece of bread in the evening. The children were so hungry that they would bring potato peelings from the rubbish dump, for instance, and when they were allowed to light a fire, they would bake them on the stove. After about two months, [typhoid] fever began to spread in the camp.

On 23 February 1945, the Germans took six people from the camp, including Ladislav’s brother Jozef, known as Loulo. Later they discovered that they had been taken to a place near Dubnica, where they had been forced to dig a pit and were then shot and buried in the pit.

In April 1945 the camp was liberated by Russian partisans and soldiers. Conditions greatly improved; the men were no longer separated, and the families were reunited. They could move freely around the camp, were given better food three times a day, and the women were even provided with flour for baking flatbread. They stayed in the camp like that for about a week. The Russians then told them to keep watch at night and if they saw them retreating, they were to take supplies from the stores and leave the camp as well. This is what happened, and the Roma set off on foot across Slovakia back home; only the sick had to stay put. They walked north along the Polish border. The journey was difficult; supplies soon ran out and they had to beg in the villages. Ladislav’s sister gave birth to her second son in the forest on the way from Dubnica. The children would go ahead to see if there were any Germans in the villages. It was not yet safe; in one village near their home, they heard that the members of the Hlinka Guard had killed two Roma. They decided to continue their journey through the night. Eventually, a gadjo gave them a ride in a wagon all the way to Humenné, where Ladislav’s sister – the only one who had not been in the camp in Dubnica – lived with her family at Podskalka. They cried with emotion at the reunion, just as they did when they met their brother Dzurja, who had managed to escape from the camp and who also survived the war. They returned home after half a year on 9 May 1945. Their house had been destroyed and his father had to build a log cabin.

On the first night in the cabin, the mulo of his murdered brother Loulo appeared to Ladislav Dudi-Koťo, to tell them how glad he was that they had returned home alive.

Ladislav Dudi-Kot’o, like other members of his family, had problems with his health due to his internment in the camp. In addition to stomach ulcers, he had psychological problems, which were eventually solved with appropriate medication by a doctor during his time in the army.

An arms factory is still located on the site of the former camp at Dubnica nad Váhom.[1] A memorial plaque has been placed at the site of the mass grave.

[1] It is now ZTS Speciál, a.s., whose history dates back to 1937, when the Škoda Plzeň concern commenced production there. During the war the company was under the control of the Hermann-Göring-Werke and turned out artillery and many other weapons for Germany.