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Association Jekhetane - Together

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presents

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Should we go after the etymology of the word Holocaust,

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we'd find out it means

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a sacrifice related to the Second World War.

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If we associate this word with the attribute of  the Roma Holocaust,

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it's kind of indication that the holocaust meaning extermination therefore not only pertains to the Jewish people,

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but is also concerned with other groups of population in Europe, and Slovakia it also covers the Roma.

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We perceive it as a unifying concept for all the suffering

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that the Roma experienced during the war.

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The Roma Holocaust had specific features,

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and in relation to Roma it was the bleakest period of modern history.

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There is a big house in Auschwitz,

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where my beloved dwels.

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Sitting there, thinking,

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forgetting about me.

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Little black bird

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carries my letter.

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Carries it there, to my wife,

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to let her know I am locked in Auschwitz.

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The Slovak State, which was created in the year 1939 after the breakup of Czechoslovakia,

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fully copied the measures which were in relation to Roma, Jews, and other groups adopted in Nazi Germany.

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In relation to the Jewish population, withdrawing property and various prohibitions took place,

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and since there was nothing to take away from the Roma, because they were indigent and those prohibitions,

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for example, related to the fact that they were not allowed to have dogs,

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or they must not have been served beer in the pub.

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One of the first regulation is the regulation of 1940,

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when the Roma, along with Jews, could not become military personnel.

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Further regulations were then focused on various kinds of persecution,

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related both to registration of the  Roma population

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and related with the effort to keep the population at the place where they resided.

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This included ban on travel by public transport,

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or a ban on entering the cities.

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They only were allowed to go in the cities within the time specified to do some shopping, for instance.

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The Guardsmen were much worse than the Germans.

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A Gypsy was not allowed to enter a village, only until 4 p.m..

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As I was going up to buy tobacco and I was returning, he told me,

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you punk, don´t you know until 4 p.m. you Gypsies must go in the village?

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Then the Gypsies could not even move after 4 p.m.

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The Roma were exposed to these repressions in particular by the Hlinka Guard.

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In particular the Contingency of the Hlinka Guard

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had the opportunity given in legislation to step up aggression against the Roma by beating them and detaining.

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According to the Ministry of the Interior Decree of the  of 1941,

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the Roma were to be moved out of the municipalities,  two kilometres away from public roads, and so on.

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There came armed forces, consisted of guardsmen and policemen, because it had to be officials,

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who commanded the Roma to demolish their homes and move within two kilometres into the forest.

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The Roma had to demolish their own homes.

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The Guardsmen helped them by firing their guns, they were breaking down those little houses made of clay.

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Then came various regulations related to internationalization.

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These were the work units, which were few of them in Slovakia.

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Passenger train direction Šarišské Lúky, , Kapušany by Presov, Lada, Nemcovce, Pavlovce,

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Hanušovce nad Topľou  - the city, Hanušovce nad Topľou, Bystré , Čierne nad Topl'ou,

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Hlinné, Soľ, Komárany, Vranov nad Topľou, Strážske, and Humenné ...

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These camps were different, the largest camps included one in Hanušovce, but also the camp in the Orava region,

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Dubnica nad Váhom, Ilava.

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The Work camps were set up at the sites where huge constructions were being made,

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the so-called showcasing of the Slovak State.

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So the Roma participated in the construction of the railway track Prešov - Strážske,

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on the said Váh river regulation, or in the Orava dam construction.

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There, in the camp

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they work very hard.

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They work very hard,

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yeah, paid with beatings.

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This is the railway station.

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Was it a two-floor one, oh, come on.

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I am saying, it was a big station.

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They say that it was constructed by the Roma, so I do not know why?

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I would like to know why they are doing it,

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because if something like that is being made, so your white folks do that,

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so I would like to know why they got the job.

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So when I look at that picture,

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different ideas are going through my head and heart,

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what they must have experienced, something so terrible.

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They took the father away, and we stayed with our mom,

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and we were going to places, they startled us out of the house,

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they took away the food from us, everything, and we just went away on foot.

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So with he bunnies, with the bags, we had some food with us.

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They told that they steered them into such camps,

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they reportedly were not allowed to enter the community of the white.

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They had infestation, have cut their hair bald.

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I know it well, the mom told me that they concentrated

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them down there beyond the railway line, it is called Hlibovec,

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so they concentrated them.

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That I know where they came from ...

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It was then.

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Just the camping people made the rails.

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I'm out of here Hanušovce, I will not name those who were beating them.

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Do you have an idea of what they were doing to them?

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When somebody trespassed anything, it was such a rod,

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one of them laid down there and a gendarme stood over him, and one camp person stood above him and beat him.

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And that beaten one shouted loud, for God´s sake..

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And he kept beating him.

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The question is why such hatred suddenly rose against the Roma and Jews in the year  1939.

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Who fed them by it?

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There must have been something before, because when until it suddenly erupted,

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because when it erupted in 1939, it soon went out all of a sudden.

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This I would like to know who fed them and why they fed them with that hate.

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We understand that life cannot be spent in hatred.

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We should have hatred against evil, but not against the person, against the people as a nation.

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The then fascist regime tried to address the issue and the situation of the Roma in Slovakia.

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One of the objectives was the issuance of various measures.

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 It was a customary term, antisocial people, and often they included the Roma among them.

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In eastern Slovakia, there  was a need for manpower for the construction of that railway line,

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so toward the end of 1941, but especially in the spring of 1942, it was decided to build labour camps

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of forced stay in eastern Slovakia, and the Roma were included among them.

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Procedure was a different in municipalities, as they were people elsewhere who,

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for example, wanted just to get rid of a particular part of the population, such as the Roma,

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for example, they even did not have to steal the crops or the like, as it was pt down in that Decree,

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this was one of the reasons.

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Very often,  an important role was played by humanity.

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So, as we have it today, given that the Decree can be explained in one´s own way.

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Why did they behave to them that way?

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That I will not tell you.

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Madam, if it was such a Slovak State then there were guardsmen, doing what they wanted.

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As you have parties today, then one party was of guardsmen.

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By their skin are they different, because the race is the same,

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and a different way of life.

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And maybe some people think so far and condemn them,

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because we have a different way of life, different thinking, different values.

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And maybe this is why we are doomed.

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We are inferior to some.

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This camp was abolished on complaints and through measures in the autumn of 1942.

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Part of those taken in was released, another part was moved to another camp branch in Bystré.

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Despite the terrible conditions, this camp was cancelled as late as in June 1943

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because the most basic parts of building the rail track were finished.

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Part of them was released,

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another part was moved to a labour camp, which was established in Dubnica nad Váhom.

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The train whistles, poor Roma are put inside.

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Poor Roma, crying loudly, taken to be hung up.

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Roma, Roma, stop crying, you will never come back.

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Oh, Mother, what am I to do, we are going to be murdered.

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A detention camp was established at the site of the former labour department in Dubnica nad Váhom.

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The whole Roma families were deported there.

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While the labour camp had a capacity of 200 people,

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in the detention camp there suddenly were placed about 700 people in the late autumn and in the winter.

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Detention camp meant that these people were concentrated at that site

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and were to be deported to concentration camps.

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Thankfully, deportation from this camp was avoided because

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the camp saw the break out of camp fever, and the camp was quarantined.

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And almost entire staff of the camp contracted that disease.

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The then administration had no strong interest in treating those people and resolving the situation,

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so the disease persisted all winter until early spring.

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How the camp authorities approached the detained persons, that is the Roma,

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is suggested by the incident that happened in February.

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They loaded the ill Roma on a truck and exported them to the area called Údolie (the Valley).

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There a large pit was waiting for them, in which 26 people ended their lives.

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 Some were shot dead, some were beaten to death, others suffocated under the layers of clay.

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The commanders of the detention camp resolved  to treat the camp fever in such a brutal way.

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In the post-war period, the mass grave was exhumed and in its place an improvised cemetery arose.

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The cross was built there of a cannon barrel and now there's a little memorial Ma bisteren,

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which commemorates the names of some of the victims.

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The Germanes behaved badly.

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We are also hiding in the village, I had a girl friend there, so I ran away.

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Then I went back seeing them how they were doing it,

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I thought they had left, and when I came back, they were still doing it.

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So they did it to me as well.

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We were not allowed to say a word "Silence!"

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They would also have killed a person.

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They were doing vice, raping. Women.

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They were raping Gypsy women.

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After the suppression of the Slovak National Uprising, many Roma communities were exterminated.

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The pretext for the genocide was either assistance to partisans

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or putative help  to partisans, that is the accusation of such aid.

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These communities were in many places eradicated from regional maps,

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and the Roma never again returned in those places.

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Run, Roma, down the hill,

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so that the Gemans would not caught you.

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When the Slovak National Uprising broke,

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Roma were given the opportunity to report in the uprising Czechoslovak army,

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which was used by quite a few of them.

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After the suppression of the uprising, Slovakia was occupied by the German occupation army.

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The fact that Roma settlements were situated on the edges of villages, on the edges of the forest,

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allowed them the contact.

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For example, people brought food in the settlement,

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where the partisans came to collect it, that is they did not have to enter the village.

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This was the cooperation

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of the local population with the partisans via Roma.

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And then it came, an indication that we should move out,

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that the Germans were coming.

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As much as we were able to, we took our daypacks and ran in the mountains.

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We were staying in Balog,

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but these Roma were already burning.

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They have burned these Roma.

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In one room they put them, even the children.

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And from that side they started firing.

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But one of them said this:

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"You know what, folks, flee as fast as you so that they do not catch you,

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because if they catch you,  they will shoot you to death, and I'm going to set this on fire."

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In early November 1944 the German soldiers dragged in Balog

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a group of about 60 Roma and also partisans whom they had taken captives.

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They put them in the local school.

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The local population in cooperation with the then priest, Jozef Poláčko,

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rescued many of these people in such a way that they

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were bringing them food, and in doing so, they always managed to sneak some apparel

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that German soldiers did not notice, that sometimes there were fewer people coming and more of them were leaving.

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Thus they were able to save many people.

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It is interesting that the local Roma provided assistance, too.

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I was twelve years old, when there was war.

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You know,  I even cannot tell you what it was in me.

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I do not know what it was in me.

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Nobody dared, only I did dare to go.

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I had a friend who used to live by us,

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a white, so she told me,

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"Why don´t you get some food to those Roma to eat, you know how these kids are hungry?"

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The mom prepared some food.

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But the father did not go, nor my sisters did , the older ones.

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They were very much afraid to go.

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They told me: "Go, let them shoot you, go, let them shoot you."

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So the mom cooked something and I went and I brought it to them.

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I brought it 5 times, and they did not catch me.

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They caught me on the sixth time. The last time they caught me,

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and when they were putting them in the rows, they pushed me in the row as well.

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Well, but then the caretaker saw it, and his wife, and she screamed and cried,

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"God, Ed's girl, they will get her away, they will get her away."

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Then the caretaker phoned the priest.

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He came and spoke German with him.

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Then he the caretaker´s caught me and brought me home. She brought me in the house.

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Then they drove them to Vydrovo, so they called that valley.

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They brought them there, and there they shot them dead.

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On 14th November 1944, they liquidated those people

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in the way that they shot dead  the men in the valley called Vydrovo.

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And in the Jergovská valley, they  brought out women and children who were taken to the hut and burned them there.

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The next day of the local Roma had to bury these people

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and found that not all of them were burnt down in the hut,

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but they found some women outside who were raped before shooting.

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The Roma were either killed on the spot

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or taken to mass burial grounds in Turček or Nemecká.

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It was like that in Ilja, in Lutila, and many other communities.

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The Roma holocaust has one more symptom, and it is the unknown holocaust.

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This is indeed the theme that has not been known for a long time.

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After the war it was necessary to live the daily life

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and those who have experienced the taste of injustice,

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did not want to return to it.

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Not even the collective sharing of this topic was sufficient.

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This topic can serve as an example

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that extreme solutions deliver extreme losses on both sides.

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And it is always good to learn from something that had  already been here,

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that such rapid and radical solutions

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that were here at the expense of a group of population, should never again be done.

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