Vojtěch Bendík

Vojtěch Bendík’s father had fought in Rus­sia dur­ing World War I. He returned ill and died at the age of fifty-two before the start of World War II. He was a musi­cian who used to play at wed­dings and sim­i­lar events with four oth­er men. He played main­ly in the win­ter, while in the spring and autumn he worked as a black­smith, repair­ing gates and ploughs. Vojtěch Bendík learned to play the bass from him, and he also learned the black­smith’s trade, although he did not enjoy it. Before the war he went to school; he remem­bered a teacher from the Czech lands who took care of the Roma. Every­one who went to his class learned to read and write. The teacher want­ed Bendik to con­tin­ue his stud­ies, but anoth­er teacher — a mem­ber of the Hlin­ka Guard — would­n’t allow it.

Vojtěch Bendík was con­script­ed at the age of twen­ty-one in the vil­lage of Čemerné. Accord­ing to him, the doc­tors on the com­mis­sion did not know where the Roma would even­tu­al­ly be sent [to mil­i­tary labor units]. He thought that those the rgise­class of 1919 might still have been allowed to join the army, but those born in 1920 were not. Eight hun­dred Roma were sup­posed to be con­script­ed into the army with him, but instead of guns and rifles, as he said, they were giv­en pick­ax­es and a shov­els. They spent a month in Čemerné, after which they were divid­ed up into three loca­tions. Togeth­er with about 60 oth­er Roma from all over Slo­va­kia, Bendík trav­elled to Prešov, where they dug trench­es and built bunkers for the Ger­mans in a for­est called Borkut. There were only Roma there, and they were guard­ed by Slo­vak sol­diers com­mand­ed by Germans.

Bendík describes 1942 and 1943 as the years when the sit­u­a­tion wors­ened — all of the 800 Roma who had orig­i­nal­ly been con­script­ed were reassem­bled and sub­se­quent­ly worked in a quar­ry. The site was sur­round­ed by barbed wire up to two metres high, they slept in wood­en huts, and were giv­en food three times a day, but instead of soup they were giv­en only the water left from boil­ing dumplings. They worked sev­en days a week, eight or twelve hours a day, and were not allowed to go home on leave. Once Bendik com­plained to a Slo­vak sergeant that he had received a small­er ration of food, and the sergeant beat him until he bled. Bendik went to report this to a sergeant-major from Sabi­nov, who com­plained about the sergeant to the com­man­der, a lieu­tenant from Veľký Šar­iš.[1] The sergeant was even­tu­al­ly sent to the front, where he was killed.

After two years the Slo­vaks were dis­charged from the army, but the Roma were not, so they decid­ed to strike and not go to work. The com­man­ders found the men who had led the strike; Bendík said they were from some­where in Humen­né and there were four or maybe eight of them. They came for them from Poprad [from the mil­i­tary court]. They were all con­vict­ed and four of them were chained up. They were kept in Ila­va [the Ila­va prison]. Bendík men­tioned about four hun­dred Jews they saw one evening [in the camp], but in the morn­ing not a sin­gle one was left. Bendík said that they were prob­a­bly burned, prob­a­bly sent to the gas cham­ber, and that they want­ed to do the same with the Roma. The offi­cers picked out about twelve of the strik­ing men, Bendik among them, and hid them so that they would not also be tak­en to Ila­va. He says that at the time they arrest­ed the orga­niz­ers of the strike, [Jozef] Tiso vis­it­ed the camp [of the mil­i­tary labour unit] and defend­ed the Roma, say­ing that they were Slo­vaks, they had Slo­vak nation­al­i­ty, they were born here and they were sim­ply of so-called Gyp­sy ori­gin. Bendík said that this saved them.[2] The offi­cers hid the select­ed twelve or so men in the woods below Kriváň.[3] Bendík then joined the [Slo­vak Nation­al] Upris­ing togeth­er with oth­ers. Romani com­man­ders from Humen­né led the upris­ing, got machine guns and fought in the forests near Lip­tovský Hrádek. The Roma man­aged to repel the Ger­mans twice. 

[1] Name not given.

[2] A sim­i­lar account of Tiso’s pro­tec­tion of so-called Gyp­sies, as opposed to Jews, is repeat­ed by sev­er­al wit­ness­es. (ed.)

[3] One of the high­est moun­tains in Slo­va­kia, locat­ed in the High Tatras.

Slo­vaks from Šindliar, who had been in Rus­sia dur­ing World War I, found­ed a branch of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty in the vil­lage after the end of World War II and enrolled Bendík in it. Of the Roma, only he and one oth­er man were there, the oth­ers did not want to join the Com­mu­nists. Bendik was elect­ed chair­man [of the local orga­ni­za­tion] of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty and vice-chair­man of the MNV [local nation­al com­mit­tee]; he was chair­man of the local Com­mu­nist Par­ty organ­i­sa­tion for about three years. The teacher who had pre­vent­ed Bendik from con­tin­u­ing his school­ing dur­ing the war also joined the Com­mu­nist Par­ty after the war and want­ed to be sec­re­tary. Bendik report­ed to the dis­trict what the teacher had done dur­ing the war, and after that he and his wife were no longer allowed to teach.

After three years Bendík began work­ing for the police, serv­ing in the Region­al Prison in Prešov, where polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were held. They were all doc­tors, as he says, clever and rich peo­ple who dis­agreed with the com­mu­nists. After a while, he left this job. He men­tioned that he worked in a stone quar­ry dur­ing the Com­mu­nist period.