Zora Horváthová

Zora Horváthová came from a group of Hun­gar­i­an Roma – her moth­er, Ilona Makulová, was from ​“Gön­clus­ka” in Hun­gary,[1] and her father, Gus­tav Mako, from Turňa nad Bod­vou [Košice dis­trict] in east­ern Slo­va­kia. Her mother’s hus­band with the sur­name Glon­ci[2] had been cho­sen for her by her par­ents, but she was already in a secret rela­tion­ship with Gus­tav Mako and they arranged to run away togeth­er when every­one was drunk after the wed­ding. Her hus­band did not seek her out, but declared that he would not divorce her. The cou­ple fled to Turňa nad Bod­vou, where they lived on the main street next to Gus­tav’s broth­er. The house was adja­cent to the hous­es of the Slo­vaks, while the oth­er Roma, poor­er than Zora Horváthová’s fam­i­ly, lived on the oth­er side of the vil­lage and lived by beg­ging. Her par­ents lived hon­est­ly, and went around the vil­lages trad­ing. At home, her moth­er repaired umbrel­las and made cords and laces for trousers and waist­coats using a loom made by Zora’s father; he him­self sharp­ened knives and scis­sors in the square. After school, Horváthová and her five sib­lings used to go to the fields to help the neigh­bours; they were giv­en food and cloth­ing in return for their work.

[1] Prob­a­bly the vil­lage of Gön­crusz­ka, locat­ed about forty kilo­me­tres south­west of Turňa nad Bodvou.

[2] First name not given.

Turňa nad Bod­vou belonged to Hun­gary dur­ing the war. In August 1944, Zora’s three old­er sis­ters – twen­ty-two-year-old Ilona, eigh­teen-year-old Brigi­ta and six­teen-year-old Zita – were tak­en away, and her uncle’s daugh­ter was also tak­en. Their par­ents were told that they were going to work with sug­ar beet, but instead they were tak­en to the syn­a­gogue – by that time the Jews had already been tak­en [to the con­cen­tra­tion camps]. Oth­er peo­ple from oth­er vil­lages were gath­ered at the syn­a­gogue; they were then tak­en by truck to the sta­tion and loaded into wag­ons. The Hor­vaths’ house was close to the rail­way tracks, so ear­ly in the morn­ing the moth­er heard her daugh­ters scream­ing and cry­ing; from then on she did not sleep or eat, but only cried and smoked. She learned from a neigh­bour who used to watch the syn­a­gogue that they had been tak­en to a con­cen­tra­tion camp. Their neigh­bour Joži Senk was behind it all, Horváthová said , because no one else was tak­en from the vil­lage except these girls. Senk denounced them to the Ger­mans, with whom he was hand in glove, but his wife was kind. There were oth­er peo­ple work­ing for the Ger­mans in the vil­lage, but they always warned the family.

On Decem­ber 15, 1944, the par­ents were tak­en as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers to a con­cen­tra­tion camp, first to Ravens­brück, lat­er to Auschwitz. A Hun­gar­i­an SS man of about eigh­teen who had been forced to work for the Ger­mans used to come to the fam­i­ly almost every evening and informed my father about the sit­u­a­tion at the front. One day the Ger­mans shot him and the same evening they came for Zora Horváthová’s par­ents. They dragged them out into the snow in the yard, searched the house, scat­tered every­thing, and took the par­ents away. They were kept in a cell for a few days, and could choose between a court mar­tial or a con­cen­tra­tion camp. A friend of Horváthová’s father who was guard­ing them, advised them to choose the camp, say­ing he would help them escape dur­ing the trans­fer; he was sup­posed to take them by horse and cart and hand them over at the bor­der. But her par­ents refused his offer, because they want­ed to see their old­er daugh­ters – and they actu­al­ly met them in Auschwitz. Her father became seri­ous­ly ill in the camp, and his broth­er saw him thrown alive into the fur­nace. Her 4‑year-old moth­er was put on a trans­port with old peo­ple. Her daugh­ter Ilona man­aged to get to her, but accord­ing to an eye­wit­ness they were shot from an aero­plane. The remain­ing two sis­ters Zita and Brigi­ta fell ill in the camp and were treat­ed by the Rus­sians who put them in a cart home. In the end Zita died on the way, in a hos­pi­tal in Lip­tovský Svätý Mikuláš, and only Brigi­ta returned home at the end of May [1945]. Her uncle and his rel­a­tives also survived.

Fif­teen-year-old Zora had to take care of her sib­lings after her par­ents were tak­en away – Otto was twelve and Aga­ta was sev­en. She pro­cured fuel and went out beg­ging so they would have at least some food. One day the Ger­mans came to their house and shot the fur­ni­ture to pieces. She was afraid of being raped, so she cov­ered her­self with soot and dirt. Often she had a close call, but she said there was always some­one who stood up for her – even among the Ger­mans, she said, there were peo­ple with good hearts. One day they announced on the radio that there would be shoot­ing for six weeks, so she and her sib­lings left home and wan­dered in the woods, tak­ing only a blan­ket with them. The first evening they reached the vil­lage of ​“Áj”,[1] where they were giv­en soup by a kind lady and were able to sleep in a barn, but all three caught lice there. Then they went to Jásov; it was freez­ing out­side, but some­one advised them to go to the monastery to ask for help. They got beans and sausage there, the first prop­er meal since they were left alone with­out their par­ents, and then they could go there every day to eat. They were also allowed to go around ask­ing peo­ple for food, but they said almost no one gave them any­thing. Zora also went beg­ging to the near­by bar­racks, where there was a mil­i­tary kitchen, and learned that they buried the unused entrails from chick­ens and pigs. She and her sib­lings would dig them up and eat them. She recalled how one after­noon they sur­vived an air raid, with bombs every­where, and peo­ple run­ning away, but they escaped.

Then they arrived at a seclud­ed place where they were tak­en in by a woman who was wait­ing for her hus­band who was at the front. They did not return home until some time in April 1945, when the weath­er was fine. They found the house destroyed – the cor­ner where their bed had been was miss­ing, so if they had stayed there they would prob­a­bly have been killed.

[1] Prob­a­bly Háj, about four kilo­me­tres north of Turňa.

They had a new house built for them In the vil­lage, with floors and elec­tric­i­ty. A neigh­bour taught Zora how to make ros­es out of crêpe paper, which she then sold for a few pen­nies. Not yet six­teen, she left to work in Bohemia with her thir­teen-year-old broth­er Otto and her school friend Šar­lota. Her sis­ters Agá­ta and Brigi­ta stayed at home – Brigi­ta already had a bride­groom before the war and mar­ried soon after it was over. Horváthová, her broth­er and her friend arrived in Říčany, where the landown­ers in the yard of the sug­ar refin­ery select­ed them, she said, as if they were choos­ing slaves. She worked for one of them for about three weeks, but one day when she was load­ing hay onto a lad­der truck, she tripped him up with her pitch­fork and he threw her out. On anoth­er farm a few kilo­me­tres from Říčany she was con­stant­ly harassed by men, and her broth­er insist­ed he want­ed to go home, so after three months they went back home. How­ev­er, there was no work in Slo­va­kia and Brig­i­ta’s hus­band reproached her sis­ter for hav­ing to sup­port her sib­lings, so Zora and her friend went back to Bohemia, to Přelouč, where she worked for a landown­er called Slavik.[1] He had two daugh­ters, Eva and Jana, and he adopt­ed Horváthová as his own. They asked what her name was, and instead of Zora, she kept say­ing in Hun­gar­i­an that she was Haj­nal­ka, so they start­ed call­ing her Hana. They didn’t pay her much, but she got on well with them. Then when every­thing was tak­en away from the fam­i­ly,[2] she had to look for anoth­er job. She said she made capac­i­tors and ampli­fiers at the Tes­la fac­to­ry and because she was skilled and hard­work­ing, she became a shock­work­er. After a while she got the news that her broth­er Otto was liv­ing in north Bohemia with a cousin, so she went to them and worked there as a tram con­duc­tor and then in a shoe shop, but she did­n’t like the work and she did­n’t like Ústí, so she left. At the age of twen­ty she returned to Slo­va­kia, where she cleaned offices in Nagyi­da [Veľká Ida] near Košice, and met her hus­band Arpad. After the war, his par­ents bought a house in Turňa nad Bod­vou, where Zora and Arpád then lived. Their first son was born before they were mar­ried, and then her hus­band went off to mil­i­tary ser­vice – and to short­en it by three months, he accept­ed an offer to work in the mines in west Bohemia. Two more chil­dren were born there, a daugh­ter and a son, but her hus­band began to seek oth­er enter­tain­ment and even­tu­al­ly they divorced. Horváthová found a job at Tes­la where she could earn good mon­ey, but suf­fered from health prob­lems relat­ed to the hard­ships of the war. All three of her chil­dren had fam­i­lies. Zora’s sis­ter Brigi­ta lived in Turňa nad Bod­vou, and her broth­er in north Bohemia, but had since died. Agá­ta lived in the flat above.

[1] First name not given.

[2] Appar­ent­ly as part of the col­lec­tiviza­tion of the coun­try­side, when the com­mu­nist state expro­pri­at­ed farms to cre­ate the state-owned agri­cul­tur­al cooperatives.