Štefan Gašpar

The Roma of Sielnica in central Slovakia lived in cottages close to a forest. There was unemployment, so they worked for rich farmers and received foodstuffs such as potatoes and flour in exchange. He said that nobody respected the Roma, but they were hard-working and accomplished, some of them as musicians. Later, after the war, they built themselves nice houses. Before the war, his uncle worked as a blacksmith and also made things for people in the village, not just for the Roma.

When Mr. Gaspar was about 15 years old, he was arrested in the spring along with other men – on a tip-off, he said, from the Hlinka Guards, because there were about five or six partisans among the Roma at Sielnica. Before they were transported, men and women in their settlement were beaten indiscriminately, and fourteen men were then taken to the village and sent to a [labour] camp in Prievidza. The whole camp was surrounded by electrified barbed wire. Men aged eighty or more from Sielnica were spared, but in Bystrica, Sásová and Krupina they were shot in the village out of hand.[1]

The camp in Prievidza was shelled by partisans. The prisoners were then transferred to another camp in Handlová, where mainly Roma and Jews were interned – more than 2500 people in total. They worked in the coal mines and also dug trenches. If anyone fell, the prisoners had to bury them. There was little food in the camp; whereas the Germans ate meat, the prisoners were given bitter coffee and a soup called kvaka, named after a weed similar to kohlrabi. They slept on bunk beds, but there were so many people in the quarters that some had to sleep on the floor; Štefan said it was warm, however. There were two mines in Handlová. The Germans herded the Roma into one of them, released gas into it, which exploded and many people died. Those who did not fit into that mine were herded into the church and also poisoned with gas. The next day, the same thing was to happen to others, including Štefan Gašpar. The partisans learned of this and attacked the village, shooting the Germans and freeing the prisoners. A member of the Hlinka Guard helped them to escape – he took pity and was compassionate, Gašpar said. The Roma from Sielnica all returned home, including the partisans – only one of them later died when fragments of shrapnel in his ribs festered.

The Slovaks from Sielnica who joined the Hlinka Guard were said to have been good to the Roma. They only went on the rampage in places where they were not known. In Sielnica, for example, the guardsmen from elsewhere, such as Martin, went on the rampage. But as far as Gašpar recalled, ​“their” guardsmen stood up for them.

[1] However, it appears from the testimony of Mara Hakeľová from Sása that the Romani men in that village were saved, albeit thanks to the great sacrifices of local Romani women.

Štefan Gašpar was a musician; he also performed on the radio. At an advanced age he learned to sew and made clothes for Roma and non-Roma neighbours.