Imrich Daško

Imrich Daško had two broth­ers, and half-sis­ters by a dif­fer­ent father.[1]

Daško’s father was respect­ed by both Roma and Slo­vaks, and earned his liv­ing as a musi­cian and black­smith. Lat­er he owned two hors­es, which he rode, and he also worked for the parish priest. He had a plot of land and Imrich already helped him plough the fields when he was ten years old. He spoke of his father as an hon­est man. 

[1] Num­ber not given.

Twen­ty-year-old Daško enlist­ed in the Slo­vak army in Octo­ber 1943 in the town of Podolínec, but at that time Roma and Jews were thrown out of the army and he said they were placed in a labour camp.[1] There­fore he had to work with two oth­er Roma on the con­struc­tion of a rail­way line near the town of Stará Ľubovňa. Daško had an acquain­tance there, a Slo­vak sol­dier, and so instead of work­ing he was put on guard duty. He spent three and a half years in the army.[2] They were in the camp until Decem­ber 1943, then they were allowed to go home on leave, and on their return, men were recruit­ed for work [in Italy (ed.)]. How­ev­er, only men with Slo­vak nation­al­i­ty could leave – those with Jew­ish or so-called Gyp­sy nation­al­i­ty remained in the camp. Daško, like all the Roma from the vicin­i­ty of Ban­ská Bystri­ca, had Slo­vak nation­al­i­ty. They were kept in quar­an­tine in Ban­ská Bystri­ca until April 1944; among them were Slo­vaks and men of oth­er nation­al­i­ties, engi­neers, artillery­men, cav­al­ry­men and infantry­men. They had no idea where they would go or what unit they would be assigned to. The order to leave was giv­en one night,[3] when they were put on freight trains, and only when they saw the Alps from the win­dows did they realise that they were going to Italy. In Aus­tria they were delayed because the rail­way line need­ed to be repaired after bomb­ing. There was an Ital­ian [labour] camp near­by and also a fac­to­ry. There were Ital­ian women in the camp who want­ed them to take them to Italy; some of them actu­al­ly man­aged to be trans­port­ed secret­ly, and one was in the wag­on in which Daško was trav­el­ling. They reached the port of Mari­na di Raven­na, where they were to relieve Slo­vak sol­diers being trans­ferred to Italy from Rus­sia. The train arrived there short­ly after the Amer­i­cans had struck the bar­racks dur­ing the bomb­ing of the port, and Daško and the oth­ers were res­cu­ing the wound­ed and dead from the rub­ble. The next day it turned out that his broth­er, Ste­fan Daško, was among the wound­ed and that he had been tak­en to hos­pi­tal. Lat­er he was able to vis­it him before he and the oth­er wound­ed were tak­en to Bratislava.

Imrich Daško describes how the trans­port then went as far as Milan, then south again to Sici­ly to the town of Cassi­no,[4] where they arrived in May.[5] He remem­bered that there were already ripe toma­toes and figs there, and he says that he learned Ital­ian in Sici­ly because his com­man­der, who was a good accor­dion play­er, got hold of a vio­lin and they used to play togeth­er at par­ties when they had free time. He then act­ed as inter­preter for the company.

Then the Ger­mans took them over and divid­ed the six and a half thou­sand sol­diers into two com­pa­nies, which built bunkers, bridges and rail­ways, and car­ried out oth­er dan­ger­ous work on build­ings that the Amer­i­cans were attack­ing – which was why they sent the Slo­vaks there. He says that when they were build­ing the bridge over the Pia­va Riv­er, the Amer­i­cans bombed them and many sol­diers were killed; this was in June or July 1944. After that they retreat­ed west­wards, back to Milan, and at that time Daško and two oth­er Roma escaped from the unit; want­i­ng to go home or pos­si­bly join the par­ti­sans. When the trio of starv­ing refugees final­ly reached the city of Bologna, they met an Ital­ian rail­way­man at the train sta­tion who under­stood what they were talk­ing about because his father was from Slo­va­kia. When they told him that they want­ed to go to Vien­na or Bratisla­va – from there they would find their way some­how – he advised them that a Ger­man trans­port that had just brought cat­tle to the sta­tion would soon be going back. So they buried them­selves in manure and straw and rode through Udine to the Aus­tri­an bor­der, where they were dis­cov­ered due to their own neg­li­gence. They were escort­ed back to Bologna, locked in the bar­racks and inter­ro­gat­ed. A Slo­vak priest, a doc­tor and two nurs­es from anoth­er bat­tal­ion, who had been caught in a mil­i­tary ambu­lance while escap­ing, were locked up with them. They were tak­en to their unit in Fer­rara, but Daško and some oth­ers escaped again, were caught again and locked up in a farm­house among the pigs. They man­aged to escape from there, and spent three weeks with an Ital­ian whose son was a pris­on­er of war in Ger­many and there­fore dis­liked the Ger­mans. He then took them across the Po Riv­er to the par­ti­sans, with whom they made their way to Milan, where the end of the war found them. They were tak­en over from the par­ti­sans by the Americans.

Daško report­ed that he was present when the Amer­i­cans and the par­ti­sans cap­tured and shot the Ital­ian Pres­i­dent Ben­i­to Mus­soli­ni and his mis­tress when they were flee­ing to Rome,[6] and hung them upside down. He goes on to recall what the par­ti­sans did to the Ger­mans on the Pia­va: they received a report from the Amer­i­cans that a Ger­man tank brigade was retreat­ing and they had to stop it. Four Roma, includ­ing Daško – one from the vil­lage of Hriňová, one from Zvolen­ská Huta,[7] anoth­er from Myja­va pod Brad­lom – were on patrol. Daško was to fire when the last tank drove by. The Ger­man com­man­der who, con­trary to cus­tom, was not rid­ing in a cov­ered vehi­cle, stopped by Daško and began to ques­tion him, think­ing that he was a Slo­vak who was on the side of the Ger­mans. The par­ti­sans start­ed shoot­ing, and the Ger­mans returned fire; many par­ti­sans were wound­ed. They failed to stop the Ger­mans, but the par­ti­sans man­aged to report the inci­dent and laid anti-tank mines on the road. So the Ger­mans did not get through; some died, and oth­ers sur­ren­dered to the Americans.

Daško relat­ed [in the inter­view] how a bar­racks some­where in Italy was bombed on Christ­mas Eve, just as the sol­diers were receiv­ing parcels from the Slo­vak Red Cross – razor blades, bis­cuits. More than a hun­dred men were killed. There were many Roma among the sol­diers with him in Italy; for exam­ple, from Komarno and Malacky. Daško was a com­pa­ny com­man­der and had ten Roma under him, for whom he col­lect­ed food and rations.

[1] These were labour units, to which Jews and some of the ​“tsi­ganes” were assigned, not being recog­nised by the con­scrip­tion com­mit­tee as ​“Slo­vaks”, i.e. enti­tled to han­dle weapons. (ed.)

[2] It also appears from oth­er tes­ti­monies of wit­ness­es that mil­i­tary ser­vice did not end with the war, but that that the sol­diers were deployed on var­i­ous oper­a­tions even after­wards – for exam­ple, elim­i­nat­ing the Ban­derites in hid­ing. (ed.)

[3] Not specified.

[4] Not found in Sicily.

[5] Year not given.

[6] In fact, Mus­soli­ni want­ed to flee to Switzer­land. (ed.)

[7] Not found.

When the war end­ed, Daško had to stay in Milan; they were unable to go home straight away because there was an inves­ti­ga­tion into who was fight­ing on which side. Slo­vak Ger­mans and Slo­vaks who col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Ger­mans were arrest­ed. Daško and the oth­ers went on patrol, gath­ered food, and repaired roads and bridges. They wore Amer­i­can uni­forms on which there was an arm­band with the word ​“Czecho­slo­va­kia”, and knee boots, and they got their pay and food from the Amer­i­cans. In the post-war short­ages, when there was noth­ing to buy, they sold cig­a­rettes and oth­er things to Ital­ians in the hope of mak­ing money.

After return­ing to Slo­va­kia, Daško helped to sup­ply civil­ians, and was then assigned to Bratisla­va in Sep­tem­ber 1945, where he guard­ed pris­on­ers. He served there until 1946, when the new recruits arrived. The old­er sol­diers were released and those who were con­script­ed in 1943, includ­ing Daško, had to stay anoth­er year while the new recruits were trained. Daško says that he also guard­ed Jozef Tiso in prison.

On his return to civil­ian life, Daško had only his father. Their fields were expro­pri­at­ed. He began to live with his wife, who was then bring­ing up the two chil­dren of her sis­ter, whom the Ger­mans had mur­dered togeth­er with her hus­band; one was one year old, the oth­er four years old. He joined the Union of Anti-Fas­cist Fight­ers and entered an agri­cul­tur­al-tech­ni­cal school. He was a mem­ber of the Nation­al Com­mit­tee, being elect­ed about eight times, and advo­cat­ed that the sta­tis­tics of peo­ple shot dur­ing the war should include Roma. It trou­bled him that the four Slo­vaks killed in the vil­lage had memo­ri­als, but the Roma vic­tims did not. Although the author­i­ties told him they had no mon­ey for it, after much insis­tence at dis­trict lev­el [the Dis­trict Nation­al Com­mit­tee] they final­ly installed a plaque with an inscrip­tion detail­ing the num­ber of Roma who had died.