Vojtěch Grundza

Vojtěch Grundza described the Roma set­tle­ment in Strop­kov, where his fam­i­ly was liv­ing at the time he was arrest­ed. More than a thou­sand Roma lived there and the set­tle­ment had more than 600 house num­bers. A stream divid­ed it into a right and a left bank, where the Grundzas lived.

The Ger­mans occu­pied Strop­kov overnight at some point in 1941 or 1942, when Grundza was sev­en­teen or eigh­teen years old. The Roma were divid­ed into groups – the old and sick were released, and the oth­ers tak­en to Hanušovce nad Topľou. There were three blocks of wood­en bar­racks in the camp in rooms hold­ing twelve peo­ple. They were main­ly Roma, for exam­ple from Michalovce or Tre­bišov, but there were also pris­on­ers of non-Roma ori­gin. Grundza described con­di­tions in the camp and rela­tion­ships among the pris­on­ers. He described how one man whom they called the fore­man was killed after he had attacked Grundza’s cousin Petre (from Bukovce) with a stick; this was because after arriv­ing at the camp Petre had refused to work. Petre hit the fore­man on the head with a pick­axe so that he died on the spot, and then he fled. Grundza described the sub­se­quent inves­ti­ga­tion, and also that they then took revenge on the Roma who informed on Grundza’s cousin, and suf­fo­cat­ed him at night with a blan­ket. He remem­bered his own flight, with about eighty oth­er pris­on­ers of which some were caught [it is not clear from the descrip­tion whether the escape fol­lowed the events with the suf­fo­cat­ed pris­on­er]. He him­self hid in the ceme­tery among the fam­i­ly tombs and from there fled home, but was betrayed by two local Roma col­lab­o­ra­tors to the gen­darmes. He and his cousin [it is not clear from the descrip­tion whether this was the pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned cousin named Petre] were arrest­ed again and impris­oned. How­ev­er, thanks to the help of a non-Roma gen­darme orig­i­nal­ly from Moravia, he escaped again– first of all home and then to the vil­lage of Ladomirová, to his mother’s broth­er, named Petres. His uncle how­ev­er col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Hlin­ka Guards and took him to the police sta­tion in Svid­ník. Vojtěch Grundza escaped from here as well and, after a fight with his uncle, hid in the for­est although he was soon dis­cov­ered and impris­oned in the Petič camp in Hanušovce nad Topľou, where they pun­ished and beat him. He said he was sent to forced labour [the dates and chronol­o­gy of these events are not clear] with a Roma mar­ried cou­ple in a fac­to­ry for wood­en boards which he loaded onto the wag­ons which took them to the front. Grundza remem­bered hav­ing rel­a­tive free­dom there – for exam­ple, they could go home every Sat­ur­day. When, accord­ing to Grundza, his mother’s god­fa­ther, an excel­lent primáš, inter­ced­ed with the chief [not spec­i­fied], with whom he was on good terms, the Roma from their dis­trict were released from the Petič camp. Grundza how­ev­er had to go to be enlist­ed [it is not clear fror the descrip­tion whether this was mil­i­tary con­scrip­tion], but with anoth­er three Roma he was not enlist­ed because he sim­u­lat­ed an eye dis­or­der [on his mother’s advice he chewed tobac­co and put drops of sali­va in his eyes so they turned red]. At the end of the war he was tak­en away by the Ger­mans and had to dig trench­es, but the pris­on­ers could go home at night. By this time the Russ­ian troops were draw­ing close and so the Grundzas tried to get away. In the end they reached the vil­lage of Raslav­ice, where the Roma chief let them live in his house, and moved in with his moth­er. When the Rus­sians came to Raslav­ice, they began to con­struct a Katyusha launch­er. They took Vojtěch Grundza in and gave him food and drink. His moth­er want­ed to go home and the Rus­sians said they could go, warn­ing them about the mines. Grundza said that only two out of alto­geth­er six Roma from his set­tle­ment sur­vived intern­ment in the camp and the con­di­tions there.

After their return to the set­tle­ment Vojtěch Grundza’s father intend­ed to dig up the belong­ings they had hid­den in the ground before they evac­u­at­ed, such as pots and oth­er things. But they could only find part of it. Then they repaired the roof so the rain didn’t get in, and grad­u­al­ly put things back in order.