How the Roma in Sačurov, Slovakia aided the partisans during the Second World War

My grandfather recalls his childhood in a Romani settlement in the district of Vranov nad Topľou. He lived with his family in the village of Kučín.

Soon after he was born in 1937, the Roma were expelled from the entire settlement. During the course of a couple of days they lost their homes and had to build themselves new dwellings in the forest.

All Roma throughout Slovakia as a whole were expelled from their homes in this way, even if to just a few kilometers beyond the territories of the towns or villages where they were living. That was how it was until the Second World War ended.

It was exactly at that time that this story of two Romani veterans, a group of partisans, and the whole Romani settlement in Sačurov takes place. In that village in the Vranov nad Topľou district, two Romani friends were living who had been conscripted into the military from 1914-1918 and had seen action.

We do not know which units exactly they were drafted into, but it was likely the Austro-Hungarian Army. During the fighting they learned German.

In those days it was quite untraditional for a Romani person to speak another language and nobody counted on them comprehending German, to say nothing of speaking it. After the Great War they returned home to Sačurov.

As far as we know, they lived there until the end of the Second World War. This story takes place at some time during the final years of that war.

The two Romani veterans were sitting at a table in a tiny little pub in Sačurov. A bunch of German officers and rank-and-file soldiers were sitting nearby.

Naturally, the Germans were speaking German to each other. (NB: It is curious that two older Romani men were tolerated in the village pub when German soldiers were also spending time there. However, from the literature we know that Romani people were “tolerated” in the Slovak State. Apparently, as we shall see from this story, the locals of Sačurov had a better relationship with Romani people than other villages did.)

What the German soldiers did not count on was that the two old Romani men drinking their beer comprehended the German language quite well. The Roma took advantage of their knowledge of German from the First World War, pricked up their ears, and overheard straight from the Germans themselves that they would be transporting goods from Sačurov to the nearby village of Davidov.

The Romani men even overheard the time the transport would take place. The unsuspecting Germans then continued with their drinking.

After slowly finishing their beer, the Romani men went home at a calm pace. Today it is generally known that the partisans who were fighting in Slovakia took advantage especially of the Roma in the settlements as sources of information to use against the enemy.

The settlement near Sačurov was no exception. The partisans soon visited and our two Romani veterans revealed to them in detail the Nazis’ plans for the transport between Sačurov and Davidov.

The partisans did not waste the opportunity and waited along the agreed-upon route at the right moment. The convoy appeared.

The partisans were ready. It was a fast operation.

They jumped out of their hiding places, shot everybody dead, confiscated the goods, and disappeared. The story ended there for them, but it was not over for the Romani settlement in Sačurov.

Naturally the Nazi authorities learned of the assault on the convoy and orders were issued to the German officials in Sačurov. The Nazis realized very quickly that the Roma must have revealed their operational plans to the partisans, but they could not be certain how they had accessed this confidential information.

German soldiers came to the Romani settlement, rounded up all the Roma there, and forced them to march into the village and stand in front of the church. The assembled Roma probably realized very soon what was happening when a couple of soldiers started readying machine guns.

At that very moment, a little Romani boy who would later become the brother-in-law of my grandfather, Josef Tokár, also faced imminent execution. All was prepared, all that had to happen was for the order to fire to be given – the powerless Roma were waiting for a certain death.

The mayor of Sačurov came running up to the church. My grandfather described what happened next as follows: “At the last minute the mayor ran up to the church, he had good connections with the Germans, his son was an officer in the army.”

My grandfather then paraphrases the mayor’s speech to the soldiers: “The mayor says to the chief: ‘Wait, why do you want to kill these Gypsies? You think they gave up some information? No way! They can’t read or write, they barely speak, to say nothing of speaking German. No, no, the partisans must have found out some other way. You’re wasting your ammunition, don’t waste your bullets on these Gypsies.”

The German soldiers thought the mayor’s words made sense. They started to dismantle the weapons and the Roma were released, they returned to their settlement without a scratch on them.

Thus it was that the story of the Romani settlement in Sačurov, which was saved at the last moment, ended happily. This happened at least one year before the end of the war.

Soon the Russian offensive began to advance and the Nazis ultimately had to withdraw from Slovakia. The Roma living there had the enormous good luck to avoid the Nazi purges.

However, it is quite possible that if the end of the war had not been in sight, the Nazis would have started deporting the Roma to their concentration camps, just as they did in the other Nazi-controlled countries. The problem with oral histories such as this one is usually that even though we have firsthand information from them, it is difficult to verify.

Fortunately, the historical sources contain many treasures which, combined with eyewitness narratives, can yield many interesting stories.