Anna Virágová

Anna Virá­gov­á’s par­ents worked in the stone quar­ry near Sklabiná, and in the win­ter her father worked as a black­smith – shoe­ing hors­es and mak­ing chains for the peas­ants to use when bring­ing wood down from the hills. Her broth­er Anton (Tono) helped his father in the forge, and with the mon­ey he earned he bought a bicy­cle, a cam­era and skis, which he learned to use. Mrs. Virá­gová said that Tono was like that, none of the Gyp­sies did any­thing like that in those days. Since his moth­er also helped his father dur­ing the win­ter, the care of the house­hold – cook­ing and care for the animals:rams, chick­ens, pigs – was left to Anna, who had com­plet­ed eight grades at the pri­ma­ry school. When she start­ed in the first grade, Anton start­ed attend­ing the munic­i­pal school in Mar­tin. He had been a good pupil, so the teacher arranged for him to be admit­ted. His father was hap­py, even though he had to pay for every­thing for his son.

They were the only Roma fam­i­ly in Sklabiná. Among the Roma, they were among the rich­er ones, while the oth­er Roma were very poor, most­ly work­ing as black­smiths, in the for­est, or on con­struc­tion sites in Mar­tin, where the local builder Hlavaj[1] was build­ing a gym­na­si­um or muse­um. As Anna said, in Masaryk’s time, dur­ing the First Repub­lic, a gyp­sy could not sit in a hotel or a pub; they were giv­en some­thing like an iden­ti­ty card [so-called Gyp­sy Iden­ti­ty Card]. Anna Virá­gov­á’s father had not received such a card, and so the whole fam­i­ly could go wher­ev­er they want­ed. The pass­es were sup­pos­ed­ly assigned by the notary, who was then, as he said, a ​“very impor­tant” per­son – some­thing like a min­is­ter today. The fam­i­ly had good rela­tions with the neigh­bours in the village.

[1] First name not given.

Six or sev­en Roma from the vicin­i­ty of the vil­lage of Sklabiná were tak­en to the camp in Dub­ni­ca nad Váhom.[1] Among them was Jano, a Romani boy with whom Virá­gová grew up and who lat­er returned home.

Anna’s broth­er Anton had to enlist in the Slo­vak army dur­ing the war,[2] although he had not yet fin­ished col­lege. He was in the bar­racks in Ružomberok for six months, then he was tak­en to the front in Rus­sia, where he spent six years; accord­ing to Virá­gová, he was cap­tured there and with the Rus­sians he was sup­pos­ed­ly tak­en back to Slo­va­kia, to Zvolen. He par­tic­i­pat­ed in the [Slo­vak nation­al] upris­ing; one of his code names was Novák. He got mar­ried in Italy and had a son there. He was also in an Amer­i­can mis­sion, Virá­gová recalled.

Anna Virá­gová recalled how her broth­er was betrayed [dur­ing the upris­ing] –the par­ti­sans, organ­ised by her broth­er, were catch­ing Ger­mans around Sli­ač, until the Ger­mans found out and start­ed look­ing for him. They put up posters with his pho­to and the name Anton Novák in Sli­ač, Sklabiná and oth­er vil­lages and promised a reward for his cap­ture. A peas­ant called Kučera,[3] with whom the fam­i­ly lived, alert­ed Anna Virá­gová to this and went around the area on horse­back, where peo­ple tore down the posters with­in half an hour. The broth­er is said to have stayed in Sli­ač.[4] At that time the par­ti­sans advanced to Zvolen, where the Ger­mans caught them and shot every­one, includ­ing the parish priest and his daugh­ter. Anna Virá­gová broth­er sur­vived, she said, because he had had to fly to Italy the night before as a partisan. 

Anoth­er inci­dent occurred in Podzámok,[5] where in a local inn par­ti­sans shot two Ger­mans of a patrol that was mov­ing between Mar­tin and Sklabin­ský Podzámok. The next day, on 29 Sep­tem­ber [1944], the Ger­mans took all the men from Sklabiná and Sklabin­ský Podzámok, includ­ing Anna Virá­gov­á’s father and her hus­band, and burned their house down. When, on 16 or 20 April 1945, Mar­tin was lib­er­at­ed, they learned that the men tak­en pris­on­er had been killed behind the bar­racks in a place called Bukov­ina. There were forty-eight men in all.[6] Among those killed in Bukov­ina was Anna Virá­gov­á’s hus­band, and also the Roma par­ti­sans Ondrej and Ďuro;[7] her father was not found among them and they nev­er learned what had been done with him. Accord­ing to Virá­gová, the group was betrayed by a local peas­ant, a bee­keep­er, who came from the vil­lage of Sučany and mar­ried into Sklabiná. Although he pre­sent­ed him­self as a decent per­son, it turned out that he was a mem­ber of the Hlin­ka Guard. He decid­ed who was to go to Ger­many, who was to be killed and who was to be allowed to go home. Among those shot were two or three of his cousins.

Hav­ing lost their house, their domes­tic ani­mals – which the Ger­mans shot or con­fis­cat­ed – and espe­cial­ly their father, the fam­i­ly, went to stay with the peas­ant Kučera. They had some mon­ey saved up; Anna Virá­gová went to work for the peas­ants, and they did not have a bad life, only the knowl­edge that they had no news of Anton weighed on them.

[1] At that time it was a labour camp, only in Decem­ber 1944 was it trans­formed into a so-called gyp­sy camp. (ed.)

[2] Prob­a­bly in 1940, remain­ing away for a total of six years.

[3] First name not given.

[4] Prob­a­bly with a protes­tant pas­tor, it is not spec­i­fied exact­ly when.

[5] The vil­lage of Sklabin­ský Podzámok.

[6] Slo­vak-Russ­ian par­ti­san groups were con­cen­trat­ed in the vil­lage of Sklabiná; on 21 August 1944, Russ­ian par­ti­sans met Ján Golian, the com­man­der of the mil­i­tary head­quar­ters of the Slo­vak Nation­al Coun­cil there, and Gustáv Husák the head of the ille­gal head­quar­ters of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of Slo­va­kia; on 30 Sep­tem­ber 1944, the Ger­mans cap­tured and mur­dered a group of par­ti­sans in Sklabin­ský Podzámok, and burned the vil­lage. (ed.)

[7] Full names not given.

Anna Virá­gov­á’s fam­i­ly only found out that her broth­er was alive when they received a let­ter from Italy after the war. In 1948, he returned home, but alone – he was not allowed to bring his new fam­i­ly with him; appar­ent­ly his wife was the daugh­ter of some cap­tain. He first head­ed to Sklabiná, but Virá­gová did not want to return there, because that was where the Hlin­ka Guard who had betrayed them lived he was giv­en about ten years in prison and served part of it, but then he was released).

Around 1949, Anton Facu­na went to work in Bratisla­va, where he met his sec­ond wife, a Slo­vak, at the min­istry. Some­time around 1975, he want­ed to go to vis­it his son and first wife, but they would­n’t let him – Anna Virá­gová said, he appar­ent­ly said some­thing he should­n’t have said, so they would­n’t let him go. He died in 1980.

Anna Virá­gová stressed how tal­ent­ed Anton Facu­na was. In Mar­tin he attend­ed not only the munic­i­pal school but also the con­ser­va­toire. He was taught to play the vio­lin by [Ján] Cibu­la.[1] Thanks to his stud­ies at the con­ser­va­toire, he had a trad­ing license to prac­tise music. He sang and played at wed­dings and par­ties with the Konček fam­i­ly from Nec­paly; Virá­gová recalled Miša,[2] who was still alive at the time, and the late Tibor and Ota.

[1] Ján Cibu­la (1932−2013) one of the most impor­tant fig­ures in inter­na­tion­al Roma pol­i­tics and the eth­no-eman­ci­pa­tion move­ment; see his tes­ti­mo­ny in the database.

[2] Michal Konček, see his rec­ol­lec­tion in the database.