Vilma Abrahámová

The Roma in Budča were musicians.

Abrahámová recounted how they hid from the Germans under their beds as they went around the houses looking for Roma. They piled blankets on the floor and hid young girls under them. The girls also wore scarves to make them unattractive. One older Romani girl was caught by the Germans and three of them raped her. The Germans stayed in the house of Vilma Abrahámová’s family, bringing blankets and beds, throwing away those of the family and driving the family out. Abrahámová and her family then hid in forest bunkers for almost six weeks.

The Germans shot three Roma in the settlement. One German caught Abrahámová, stripped himself naked and forced her to wash him. Finally, her mother-in-law rescued her from the situation and washed him herself. The German then climbed on the table or on the bed and defecated there. She said the Russians didn’t treat them like that; the Germans were, in her words, ​“devils”.

She remembered her father, and said he was a great partisan and had many decorations. He joined the partisans together with Jozef Abraham on 29 August [1944] in Zvolen. Then, when the Germans had left, he came with the Russians in a car to look for her and make sure she was alive. About five years ago he shot himself and was buried without a priest. The rich Slovaks were said to be angry with him because, as a partisan, he had rich peasants shot. She said that her father was a gendarme and that one of her brothers was still a policeman in Zvolen.