Michal Demeter

Michal Deme­ter grew up in a musi­cal fam­i­ly in the vil­lage of Borov.[1] Five inte­grat­ed Roma fam­i­lies lived there. His father and grand­fa­ther were black­smiths, and as a boy Michal already helped in the forge in the yard to work the bel­lows and burn coal. His father played the accor­dion and the dou­ble bass. Michal was five years old when his moth­er died, his broth­er only one year old. From that time they lived in pover­ty and were often hun­gry. He only had two months’ school­ing. The teacher did not teach the poor chil­dren so they did menial tasks for him – chopped wood, cut the grass, looked after the cat­tle and so on. He remem­bered that the daugh­ter of a woman from the vil­lage for whom he looked after the cat­tle sewed a shirt and trousers for him.

[1] Today part of the town of Medzilaborce.

The first to be deport­ed from the vil­lage were the Jews. On the order of [Jozef] Tiso Roma­nies’ hous­es were demol­ished and they were hound­ed into the for­est where they had to build new hous­es. Michal Deme­ter said that the mem­bers of the Hlin­ka Guard worse than the Ger­mans, and they enjoyed tor­tur­ing peo­ple. His father worked in the for­est, even though the Romani chief inter­ced­ed on his behalf, explain­ing that he had to look after small chil­dren on his own, he was tak­en off to a labour camp in the vil­lage of Hanušovce nad Topľou. His younger broth­er was tak­en in by his aunt but Michal was left to take care of him­self. He described how he had to fend for him­self for four­teen months, hid­ing in the for­est and starv­ing. He was filthy, lice-infest­ed and bare­foot, and stole food from people’s lofts. Then his father was injured by a fall from a bridge in the camp and and came home, hav­ing been released as unfit for work.

Michal Deme­ter described how his name­sake Michal,[1] the vaj­da​’s son, man­aged to escape from the camp. The Ger­mans came for him, beat him, and dragged him har­nessed to a horse to Medzi­laborce, where he end­ed up locked in a cellar.

Michal Deme­ter with anoth­er boy and girl took food and tobac­co to par­ti­sans hid­ing in the for­est. They pre­tend­ed they were going to get wood. They had no shoes, so they tied rags round their feet.

Dur­ing the war he caught typhus. He remem­bered that all the sick were thrown into a cart and tak­en to the hos­pi­tal in Michalovce.

Michal Deme­ter described how at the end of the war the vil­lages were pil­laged by sol­diers[2] and the Roma tak­en from the set­tle­ments to the vil­lage of Koman­ice, where they sur­vived the final bat­tles in a barn. They had no prop­er­ty left. After the fight was over they wel­comed the Russ­ian soldiers.

[1] Sur­name not given.

[2] He does not say from which army.

After the war his father found a new wife who already had a son, and in 1945 he left for Bohemia to try and find work there. He returned three weeks lat­er with two big suit­cas­es full of clothes and oth­er things, delight­ed with how the Czechs had helped them when they told them where they were from. So they moved to Bohemia the same year, and with anoth­er fam­i­ly they applied for work on a farm in Chrudim. Michal Deme­ter remem­bered that he still wore clogs, and that they had care of a cow, a bull and a horse, and had to spread manure. He quick­ly learned Czech. Nine months lat­er they left the farm for the vil­lage of Kopista near Most, where the local author­i­ty pro­vid­ed an apart­ment for them.

In Most he met his wife Juliana, who was then six­teen years old, and they soon got mar­ried. When Juliana’s par­ents saw how hard­work­ing Michal was, they final­ly accept­ed the mar­riage. How­ev­er, Michal Demeter’s father did not want to stay in Most, and so the whole fam­i­ly moved to Prague where Michal’s step­broth­er was already liv­ing in Kobylisy. They began work on a build­ing site in Vysočany and some months lat­er the­fore­man offered the young cou­ple accom­mo­da­tion in a hos­tel and work at the Podolí Water­works, where they cart­ed sand. Even­tu­al­ly the rest of the fam­i­ly moved in with him and they all lived together.

When he was eigh­teen he had to do his mil­i­tary ser­vice and served three years in the Tech­ni­cal [Aux­il­iary] Bat­tal­ion. He already had two sons by this time. He did his ser­vice in Rum­burk, Týniště nad Orlicí, Žam­berk and Náchod, and also spent eight months as a guard at the Mil­i­tary Hos­pi­tal in Střešovice [Prague]. He and his wife cor­re­spond­ed in the Roma lan­guage but because he could nei­ther read nor write, he was helped by a trav­eller.[1]

They spent anoth­er year in Podolí after Michal returned from mil­i­tary ser­vice, and before they moved into a big­ger apart­ment in Braník. Michal Deme­ter described the neigh­bours’ ini­tial mis­trust of the new Roma ten­ants. In the end they spent a large part of their life there. Four more chil­dren were born to them there – alto­geth­er they raised three sons and three daugh­ters. Deme­ter worked for Posista [a mil­i­tary con­struc­tion com­pa­ny] in Smí­chov, and until his retire­ment he worked as a labour­er for 25 years in a gas works.

In 2001 they had to move out of the apart­ment because it was to be recon­struct­ed. They stored their fur­ni­ture in the cel­lar and were sup­posed to return eight months lat­er, but the new rent was too high and their fur­ni­ture had gone mouldy in the cel­lar in the mean­time. One of their sons took them in until they found places in a Prague care home, but did not feel com­plete­ly at home there. If he could have a wish grant­ed, Michal Deme­ter said, it would be to have his own apart­ment to live in, and look like a human being.

[1] A spe­cif­ic group of peo­ple linked with cer­tain trades, such as run­ning mer­ry-go-rounds, cir­cus­es, pup­pet shows, etc.