Elena Lacková

Lack­ová stat­ed that before the war there were eleven Jew­ish fam­i­lies liv­ing in Šar­iš, whom they called Čhinde. They most­ly owned shops or tav­erns and sold var­i­ous goods. The Roma got along bet­ter with the Jews than with the Slo­vaks, and rela­tions were based on mutu­al assis­tance. On the Sab­bath, Lack­ová used to light the fire for the fam­i­ly of a Jew named Caj­zler [Zeisler, Zeisel], who had a shop and a tav­ern, and she would get bread for it.[1] Caj­zler rent­ed rooms in a cas­tle in Šar­iš, in which he dried med­i­c­i­nal herbs col­lect­ed by the Roma. From spring onwards Lack­ová and her friend Ilona-Husič­ka would come to pick colts­foot, sloes, worm­wood and oth­er herbs for him; but she espe­cial­ly remem­bers how all the local Roma used to pick lime blossom. 

The Jews of Šar­iš were not all relat­ed, but they were very sup­port­ive of each oth­er. Lack­ová described how, in addi­tion to the Caj­zlers, she also went to help Berg­er’s wid­ow, who had a shop. Her grand­moth­er went there every morn­ing to drink some spir­its, which ​“Berg­er­ka” gave her on cred­it, because they were friends. Her grand­fa­ther, who worked in the mill, would go to pay her grand­moth­er’s bill after pay­day. Lack­ová also illus­trat­ed the close rela­tion­ship by not­ing that when Mrs Berg­er’s daugh­ter was buried, all the Romani peo­ple went to see her off.

Next to the Lack­os lived the ​“Englen­ders” [Englän­der], who also owned a shop. They had three chil­dren; their twins were born in the same year as Lack­ová. The chil­dren were friends and Lack­ová’s moth­er cro­cheted, sewed and mend­ed the holes in the Englän­ders’ clothes. Lack­ová also recalled a Jew­ish teacher who brought her lunch­es to school. She was the only Romani girl in her class, and every day the teacher would give her a roll, bread and but­ter, and some­times even a cake, but she would take it home for her sis­ter Vil­ma, who was eleven years younger.

Lack­ová says that before the war Jews were respect­ed among the pop­u­la­tion and that Romani peo­ple even named them­selves after them. One boy whose father died and who could play the cim­balom at the age of sev­en was called Caj­zler, but no one knew him by his first name. Ele­na Lack­ová explained that a child was named after some­one who was rich or hap­py, who has a good name among peo­ple, who was respect­ed, who stood out in some way – or sim­ply after some­one who was liked. ​“We got along with Jews”, she explained. ​“They nev­er mocked us like the Gad­jos. We had sup­port from them. And then the Hlin­ka Guards came – and that was the end.”

[1] She act­ed as a so-called Shab­bat Goy.

Ele­na Lack­ová briefly described how all the Jews were round­ed up and tak­en away, and how the Roma escort­ed them out. The local Slo­vaks just looked out of the win­dows, and Lack­ová con­clud­ed that they were prob­a­bly afraid of the guards. She and her friend Olga Englän­der cried the last time they saw each oth­er. Olga man­aged to escape from the trans­port and want­ed to go to Hun­gary, but was shot on the Slo­vak-Hun­gar­i­an bor­der. Jew­ish prop­er­ty was con­fis­cat­ed by the guards. Accord­ing to Ele­na Lack­ová, the Roma feared that the same thing would hap­pen to them, and she spoke of threats by the Hlin­ka Guards that the Roma would be turned into ​“soap and ointment”.

Of the Englän­der fam­i­ly, only Olga’s broth­er Shani returned from Auschwitz. Ele­na had sat next to him in class for sev­er­al years before the war. He came to the Roma at Kor­paš and told them what had hap­pened to Olga. He came to say good­bye to them, he was plan­ning to go to Israel. Ele­na Lack­ová nev­er heard from him again.

Lack­ová also talked about how the local Slo­vaks destroyed Šar­iš Cas­tle after 1948. Every­thing was demol­ished and only the chapel remained on the hill.