Agnesa Horváthová

The Romani peo­ple in Chmelov lived in about six or sev­en hous­es built of unfired bricks, and con­sist­ing of a small room and a pantry. Agne­sa Horváthová and her par­ents lived in one of these hous­es, which stood near the church. Before the sit­u­a­tion dete­ri­o­rat­ed, she man­aged to com­plete four years of pri­ma­ry school.

When Horváthová was about four­teen years old,[1] the Hlin­ka Guards (includ­ing a local farmer who joined them) drove the Roma from Chmeľov into the for­est at Petič. She stopped going to school — her par­ents were elder­ly and afraid to let her go to the vil­lage. They built a poor house out of wood in the for­est and stayed there for about a year; she remem­bers that there was mud every­where.[2] Ire­na Kroková’s fam­i­ly stayed in Chmeľov, where they were quite well off because they worked for rich farm­ers, the Sučeks; Horváthová remem­bers them as nice people. 

The next year fight­ing broke out and Horváthová, her moth­er and oth­er peo­ple ran and hid in the for­est. The Ger­mans set fire to the hous­es, over­turned every­thing in the dwellings, and raped Romani girls and women, both young and old.

Horváthová recalled the names of sev­er­al vil­lages that the Roma par­ti­sans came from — Babin Potok,[3] Hanušovce nad Topľou, Pavlovce, and Ďurďoš. Babin Potok was the home of a well-known par­ti­san named Oracko, who lat­er lived in Chmelov. Dur­ing the war, he encour­aged the Roma to join the par­ti­sans so that there would be as many of them as pos­si­ble. The par­ti­sans put rifles over the shoul­ders of some of the Roma and made them go with them, but many joined vol­un­tar­i­ly, want­i­ng to fight against the Hlin­ka Guards. Orack­o’s group also includ­ed oth­er men; accord­ing to Horváthová, they were Roma from Pavlovce and Hanušovce. When the [Rus­sians] bombed the prison in Prešov,[4] par­ti­sans from Hanušovce were among the vic­tims; one sur­vived, although he lost his arms due to a rock­fall. His name was Janko;[5] he was the son of Fulak, and lived with ​“Fer­iček’s Verona”,[6] but soon died, leav­ing behind a young wife with eight chil­dren. The Roma par­ti­sans who sur­vived the air raid returned. Four young Roma from Pavlovce then fought with Oračko, but no one from Chmeľov joined. 

There was fierce fight­ing at Babin Potok. The Ger­mans were entrenched in the for­est, and once when the par­ti­sans attacked, they mined a bridge, caus­ing holy pic­tures to fall from the wall. They sent guards­men to Babin Potok against Oračko, but the par­ti­sans hid from them and saved themselves.

[1] Prob­a­bly in 1943.

[2] Horváthová also men­tions that they lived for a year and a half with an aunt in the vil­lage of Pavlovce in the dis­trict of Vra­nov nad Topľou, but it is not clear exact­ly which peri­od she is refer­ring to.

[3] Now part of the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Terňa.

[4] An air raid on Decem­ber 20, 1944, dur­ing which 120 peo­ple impris­oned by the Gestapo were killed.

[5] Full name not given.

[6] Full name not given.

A Slo­vak woman was now liv­ing on the land near the church where the fam­i­ly had pre­vi­ous­ly lived. So Horváthová’s father put togeth­er some mon­ey and, she said, a Slo­vak in the vil­lage sold them a plot of land for twelve thou­sand crowns, on which they built a house. After that they were fine.