Vojtěch Fabián

Vojtěch Fabián had a fair com­plex­ion, so his father did not believe he was his son and sus­pect­ed his wife of hav­ing con­ceived the child with a Jew, of whom there were many in Strop­kov. He beat both his son and his wife, and called Vojtěch a son of a bitch.

Edi­tor’s note on the inter­view: Vojtěch Fabián spent his child­hood and youth in a Roma set­tle­ment in the vil­lage of Kuri­ma. His grand­fa­ther was a musi­cian, and his father a labour­er who worked for ten years in a stone quar­ry for a Jew­ish builder called Cha­jim[1] – until Mr. Cha­jim was put on a trans­port to a con­cen­tra­tion camp. Vojtěch Fabián had helped with the fam­i­ly’s liveli­hood from his ear­ly youth – at the age of four­teen he used to go to Prague to sell mouse­traps, clothes hang­ers and oth­er small goods. In Prague he also had a love affair with a doc­tor from Dejvice who was ten years old­er than he was and taught him to read and write. In Kuri­ma he served Jew­ish fam­i­lies, bring­ing packs of cig­a­rettes on foot from Barde­jov to a mixed-goods mer­chant, and going with oth­er boys to knock juniper berries out of the trees and sell them for a few hellers at the col­lec­tion point. He did­n’t spend much time at school, but taught him­self a lot dur­ing his life – as an adult he served at the mil­i­tary air­port in Prague-Kbe­ly, retir­ing from there with the rank of lieutenant.

[1] Sur­name unknown.

Vojtěch Fabián was con­script­ed in Spišská Nová Ves in 1940. A Czech doc­tor warned him that because of his ori­gins he would have to go to a so-called gyp­sy camp. Fabián did not resist this; as he said, :where oth­er Gyp­sies go, I will go:. But the doc­tor warned him that he would be killed there. He advised him to deny his ori­gins. So Vojtěch Fabián enlist­ed in the army in the artillery rather than the labour unit [where Roma were often assigned] which was called the choco­late army, because the Roma had brown epaulettes.

Vojtěch Fabián left for the East­ern Front on 24 July 1941, which was, accord­ing to what he said, not long after war broke out on 22 July 1941.[1] He remem­bered Bila Cerek­va,[2] where they spent about a month, and espe­cial­ly the beau­ti­ful sev­en­teen-year-old Russ­ian girl he fell in love with before they were tak­en to Italy.

He spent almost two years on the Ital­ian front, learn­ing Ital­ian dur­ing this time. There were oth­er light-com­plex­ioned Roma, and about two thou­sand Slo­vaks with him. The sol­diers were sent to Italy as a pun­ish­ment, because the Ger­mans did not trust the Slo­vaks in Rus­sia. Many of them had defect­ed to the Russ­ian side, so they were sent to work in Italy. The jour­ney from Min­sk in wag­ons meant for pigs took six­teen days and nights, and then in Italy they had to build bunkers for the Ger­mans and do the worst jobs. They were bombed twice, the first time at East­er [1944 (ed.)] in ​“Roc­ca Gor­ga” [prop­er­ly Roccagor­ga] about sev­en­ty kilo­me­tres from Rome, where about ten sur­vived, and where he griev­ed for the death of a lit­tle dog he had found and had with him. The fol­low­ing bom­bard­ment on 4 June at Nog­a­ra was even worse; only thir­ty-sev­en of six hun­dred sol­diers survived.

When he was still in the town of Roccagor­ga, he used to vis­it a group of local Roma who lived in stone hous­es cov­ered with earth. He under­stood their lan­guage and they admired his dog and espe­cial­ly the tricks he had taught him. In Italy, how­ev­er, he also met wealthy and, he said, intel­li­gent Roma, who had beau­ti­ful hors­es and beau­ti­ful girls and trav­elled around in wag­ons and caravans.

After arriv­ing at the new unit, Fabián noticed that there were many Roma in it who were beat­en by the Hlin­ka Guards — for exam­ple, Sergeant Baláš from Michalovce attacked a Romani man from ​“Butany”[3] in front of Fabián’s eyes. Fabián slapped his face and then asked a com­man­der named Ňaňák to put the Roma from the unit in his charge. He did not how­ev­er reveal he was Roma to the sol­diers until lat­er. He arranged for them to be giv­en new clothes, soap, blan­kets and sheets, and also detained mail, but he insist­ed on dis­ci­pline and order so that the Roma would be respect­ed. In the end, it was not only the Roma who did the most dan­ger­ous work, espe­cial­ly clear­ing fall­en and unex­plod­ed bombs by truck into the sea, but also the oth­er sol­diers; many were blown to pieces or maimed. Fabi­an said they were like a pun­ish­ment battalion.

When the Amer­i­cans were approach­ing, no one cared about them any­more. Vojtěch Fabián there­fore set off for home with the sol­diers he com­mand­ed. They moved only by night, and dur­ing the day made maps. They walked one thou­sand two hun­dred and six­ty kilo­me­tres, liv­ing off what they found or stole — hams, bacon, and even the local priest’s pig. Anoth­er time they saw two Ger­mans herd­ing stolen or con­fis­cat­ed cat­tle. They got into con­ver­sa­tion with them, then hit one of them on the head and ran away with the cow. He stole sev­er­al hors­es while on the run, and also a don­key, which, as in the case of one of the hors­es, he had to shoot when the ani­mal was wound­ed. It still grieves him when he remem­bers it.

Vojtěch Fabián was in good stand­ing among the sol­diers and com­man­ders — he could read and write, and helped with writ­ing let­ters, for instance, includ­ing those of the Slo­vaks, who, being peas­ant boys, often had not attend­ed school and were illiterate.

Fabián’s com­man­der in the army had a broth­er who was a teacher in Kuri­ma. He mar­ried a Jew­ish woman who was a post­mistress, while he him­self became a mem­ber of the Hlin­ka Guard and even found­ed a group of Hlin­ka Guards in Kuri­ma. He did not, how­ev­er, leave his wife and moved with her to Spišská Nová Ves, where he enlist­ed. When they met, the teacher was afraid that Fabián would betray them, but he did not tell any­one. He went to them every day for a meal and did not eat what they were giv­en in the barracks.

[1] In fact, Slo­va­kia had already entered the war on 24 June 1941.

[2] Bila Cerk­va in Ukraine.

[3] This would have been the vil­lage of Bučany in the Trna­va district.

Vojtěch Fabián returned home to Kuri­ma on 12 August [1944], before the [Slo­vak Nation­al] Upris­ing broke out. But peo­ple at home thought he was dead, and they had already car­ried out the last rites for him, because three or four days before, a Roma sol­dier from the vil­lage of Porúb­ka had returned home from Italy and told Vojtěch Fabián’s par­ents that their son had not sur­vived the bomb­ing at Nog­a­ra, and he had seen him dead there.

Not want­i­ng to go into civil­ian life, Vojtěch Fabián entered the mil­i­tary acad­e­my in Košice and became involved in fight­ing with the fol­low­ers of Gen­er­al Vlasov and of Ste­fan Ban­dera, who, accord­ing to Fabián, did things that were worse than the SS. One fol­low­er of Ban­dera named Burla­ka[1] was report­ed­ly chased for six weeks in Poland, and final­ly cap­tured in Strečno.[2] Vojtěch Fabián guard­ed Burla­ka and his mis­tress for ten weeks in Ban­ská Bystri­ca, dri­ving him every Thurs­day from the town bar­racks[3] to the Rad­van bar­racks,[4] where they were inter­ro­gat­ed by Gen­er­al [Pavol] Kuna[5] and Gen­er­al Nosko.[6] Vojtěch Fabián also men­tions the film Akce B.[7] He said that noth­ing in it was true.

Inex­pe­ri­enced aspi­rants who had been with Fabián at the mil­i­tary acad­e­my in Košice were deployed in the search for the Ban­derites. In one action, thir­ty-six of them were shot by the Ban­derites and their bod­ies could not be removed imme­di­ate­ly. Three days lat­er they were still lying unwashed and blood­ied in the hos­pi­tal morgue in Ružomberok, wait­ing for the arrival of the com­mis­sion from Ban­ská Bystri­ca. In the mean­time, the sur­vivors arrived, some from Bohemia. Gen­er­al Kravchenko, who was in charge of the hos­pi­tal, ordered Fabi­an not to allow them near the fall­en. How­ev­er, the sur­vivors broke down the door and saw the bod­ies of those shot in that deplorable state. In an emo­tion­al­ly tense sit­u­a­tion, one of the Czechs shout­ed some­thing at the Slo­vaks, which Gen­er­al Lud­vík, whose son was among the dead, found offen­sive. The gen­er­al shook hands with all the sur­vivors except one, and apol­o­gised to all except one — the one who had shout­ed that they were Czech intel­lec­tu­als and [the Slo­vaks] had done this to their sons.

Vojtěch Fabián con­clud­ed his sto­ry by say­ing that his father, who had beat­en him as a child, was in the end proud of him – because of his uni­form and the mil­i­tary academy.

[1] Burla­ka, whose real name was Volodymyr Ščy­hel­skyj, was in a Ban­dera unit that infil­trat­ed Slo­va­kia in June 1947, and was cap­tured on 3 Sep­tem­ber 1947, but escaped from the prison in Košice.

[2] Burla­ka was hand­ed over to the Pol­ish author­i­ties after being recap­tured in Slo­va­kia, received the death penal­ty, and was exe­cut­ed in 1949.

[3] Prob­a­bly what was then the infantry bar­racks on Horní náměstí (Upper Town Square).

[4] Then the Pohron or Rad­van barracks.

[5] A par­tic­i­pant in the Slo­vak Nation­al Uprising.

[6] Július Nosko, chief of staff dur­ing the Slo­vak Nation­al Upris­ing; after the lib­er­a­tion he led the fight against the Banderites.

[7] Oper­a­tion B, 1951, a ten­den­tious fea­ture film pro­duced with the coop­er­a­tion of the Min­istry of Nation­al Defence and the Min­istry of Nation­al Security.