Anna Cinová

Anna Cinová’s two sons were tak­en away by gen­darmes and the Hlin­ka Guard to Prešov, It was sup­posed to be some­thing sim­i­lar to mil­i­tary con­scrip­tion. One of them was released for health rea­sons.[1] Her oth­er son Jan was tak­en to the Petič camp. He worked on the con­struc­tion of the rail­way track at Lip­níky. Cinová described the con­di­tions of those interned; above all the hunger, the hard labour and the con­stant beat­ings. They were giv­en food once a day and so every day she or her daugh­ter-in-law brought some­thing extra to the camp. She her­self worked in the farm­ers’ fields to earn just a cou­ple of crowns, but she was helped by her non-Roma friend, the priest’s house­keep­er,[2] for whom she col­lect­ed for­est fruits and in return received flour, bread, pota­toes and so on. Cinová men­tioned the may­or of the parish of Stuľana, where Jozef Cina lived: he did not send the Roma to the camp and so they came to work in Petič, but at night were allowed to return home. She also remem­bered how at an enter­tain­ment in the parish of Bystré the farm­ers beat the gen­darmes from Petič, because they saw with their own eyes how they treat­ed peo­ple in the camp. Anna Cinová talked about the repeat­ed escapes of her son Jan from the camp and recalled that he was helped not only by Roma but also by Slo­vaks. In one of his escapes his cousin was with him, but was cap­tured and tied up by the gen­darmes, who at Chmeľov threw him out of the car, so that he died on the spot. Cinová remem­bered Roma in the Revú­ca labour camp who informed on oth­er Roma to the gen­darmes.[3]

[1] Jozef Lacko, Ele­na Lack­ová​’s hus­band, who had had a crip­pled arm from child­hood and was shov­el­ling brown coal at the sta­tion in Prešov. (ed.)

[2] Name not given.

[3] The lead­er­ship of these camps had received instruc­tions direct­ly from the Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or to obtain inform­ers from the ranks of what were known as ​“enlist­ed men”, who then had var­i­ous rewards and received a finan­cial pay­ment. (ed.)

Anna Cinová recalled one Pole,[1] who was orig­i­nal­ly impris­oned for theft but then joined the Hlin­ka Guards and denounced peo­ple to the gen­darmes. How­ev­er, when the Rus­sians arrived he denounced his fel­low guards. Then he had the priest from Kapušany, a kind man, trans­ferred, although the peas­ants begged to let him stay. The peas­ants were afraid of the Rus­sians because many of them end­ed in Siberia, and so no one gave the Pole away. But Cinová stat­ed: ​“Then that Pole died. He did it all by him­self. No one else pun­ished him. But the Lord God knows the truth.” Cinová did not live in Kapušany at that time, hav­ing moved with her hus­band to Stuľany, and her wid­owed daugh­ter-in-law Ele­na had left for her mother’s home in Šar­iš.[2] After the war Ele­na Lack­ová drew atten­tion to the behav­iour of one of the local gen­darmes who had harmed the Roma dur­ing the war.[3]

Accord­ing to Cinová, the gen­darme was then dis­missed from his job. 

[1] Name not given.

[2] Jozef Lacko had died of an intesti­nal obstruc­tion. (ed.)

[3] Until the abo­li­tion of the Prešov dis­trict Cinová’s daugh­ter-in-law Ele­na Lack­ová worked as cul­tur­al inspec­tor for the Region­al Nation­al Com­mit­tee in Prešov. Her posi­tion enabled her to help the Roma and draw atten­tion to some unpun­ished war crimes. (ed.)