Facuna, Anton

Anton Facu­na (1920−1980) – an impor­tant Slo­vak Romani fight­er against Nazism and an activist. After the estab­lish­ment of the Slo­vak state in 1939, he was draft­ed into the Slo­vak army, desert­ed in 1944 and under­went train­ing as a vol­un­teer in Italy with the US army. Under the code­name Anton Novak, he was a mem­ber of a para­troop unit orga­nized by Amer­i­can mil­i­tary intel­li­gence called Oper­a­tion Day, with which he joined the Slo­vak Nation­al Upris­ing in the autumn of 1944. Co-founder and first chair­man of the Gyp­sy-Roma Asso­ci­a­tion in Slo­va­kia (1968−1970).