Testimonies

In 2000 the Roma Press Centre published a book titled “Recollections of Roma Holocaust survivors” (“Roma Holocaust túlélők emlékeznek”) in which they collected testimonies of Hungarian Roma who survived the Roma Genocide. The book was re-published in 2008. The following are some excerpts from the interviews with two survivors, Angéla Lakatos "Mici", who was forty at the time, and Margit Raffael "Falat" who was fourteen:

"I received eight bullets, in my hand, my leg, in my side, here as well, and also in my thigh. Eight shots. (...) I am the only survivor and a little girl. When everything was already silent, they took an acetylene lamp from the watchman's house and examined us. I was lying in the hole; I did not move. When they had left and everything was silent, I pressed each of the bodies who were around to see if there was anyone alive. My hand fell over a little girl, she pinched me back. I said: Who are you? Which one are you? She answered: I am Falat. I said: Help me, please, I am not able to stand up."

"Next to the highway number eight, 20 to 22 kilometres from the town Székesfehérvár, right before Várpalota, there is a small pond, which used to be a hole before. No one knows for sure the number of people lying in this mass grave. The people's tribunal case of 1946 knew about 130 victims but István Harangozó, member of the Popular Front in Székesfehérvár, affirms that although 132 Roma were deported from Székesfehérvár, we have to add to this number 15 to 20 Roma from Várpalota, who were shot to death together with them by the Arrow-Cross men and gendarme."

Mici's mother, father, sisters and brothers, and sons remained in the hole. Margit Raffael also lost everybody from her family: four brothers and her mother; her father was earlier taken to Germany and never returned.

György S. Márványi published a reportage with the title "Under water, under the ground" on the Várpalota execution (Élet és Irodalom, 25th October 1975). The following are some quotations from the reportage:

Angéla Lakatos, Mici
They gathered us and they took us to Várpalota. We were many, they shut us up in a barn. It was snowing, raining, the children were crying, you can imagine, there wasn't a piece of bread. And we were also crying, what would happen to us. Gendarme said we would have bread and water at the shelter. Men were drove there in the morning and forced to dig a hole. They could never come up from the depth, they were shot to death. When we got there, men were already dead. And then they started shooting us, women and children. I was pregnant then, I would have had my baby in July. I received eight bullets, in my hand, my leg, in my side, here as well, and also in my thigh. Eight shots. (...) I am the only survivor and a little girl. When everything was already silent, they took an acetylene lamp from the watchman's house and examined us. I was lying in the hole; I did not move. When they left and everything was silent, I pressed each of the bodies who were around to see if there was anyone alive. My hand fell over a little girl, she pinched me back. I said: Who are you? Which one are you? She goes: I am Falat. I said: Help me, please, I am not able to stand up.

Margit Raffael, Falat
When they started shooting, I got scared very much. I jumped in the hole. No bullet touched me, I got a small one only, which came out from somebody else. Sort of a "tired" bullet...
My dress was full of blood. I was walking towards the railway station, when I saw a woman leaning out of the window of a nice house. By then it was known all around how many Roma had been killed by the Arrow-Cross men. She invited me in, took my bloodstained clothes off and gave me her own dress. She put a bandage on my wound, treated it with medicine and gave me money so that I could go to Győr. There was my uncle living there, I stayed there for a while and then got married.

Miklósné Krakovszki
I went to town to do the shopping, suddenly I saw that many Roma were driven somewhere. I asked: where are they taking them? Another woman goes: the Arrow-Cross men are taking them to work. They brought them here, where there is this pond now. I followed them, went in the acacia grove, in the depths of the forest. There they had been already forced to dig a long-long, deep trench. (...) Women were sent there to the edge, their baby in their hand, and the smaller children next to them, clutching their dress. It was horrible to see how they were shot one by one. And as the Arrow-Cross men were shooting them, they were falling into the hole; a small child did not die, so they went there and shot him. I screamed and then an Arrow-Cross man goes: Who screamed? Which one was it? Come on, get her! And then I escaped, I ran home.

Angéla Lakatos once a year, at springtime takes a train and travels to Várpalota. She carries flower with her, goes to the pond and throws the bunch in the water.

József Forgács, Roma Genocide survivor from Zalaegerszeg in Hungary, told his survivor's story to Antonia Zafeiri, a European communications associate at the Open Society Foundations: "Forgács recounted his memories of deportation from Hungary and his time at a forced labor camp in Austria, where he spent eight months as a child. The Nazis separated the crowds at the first train stop in Komárom. This was the last time Forgács saw his father. A week later, on the second selection round, Forgács was taken to a labour camp in Austria alongside other Hungarian Roma, including many children. His mother stayed behind. From September 1944 to April 1945, Forgács worked at a large factory with many industrial machines. He cannot recall where he was held but most probably one of the labour camps in the Mauthausen concentration camp complex. Forgács could not believe he was still alive when Soviet troops liberated the camp. The gates were opened and he was free. But his ordeal was not over. They walked hundreds of miles, begging for shelter and food from people speaking a strange language. They slept anywhere they could find, usually outdoors in a field. Many children died like this on the road. When he arrived at Sopron, a city at the Hungarian-Austrian border, he knew he was home. But home was nowhere to be found. When he finally reached his hometown of Zalaegerszeg, his family house had been ruined. Forgács stayed in Zalaegerszeg all his life, working for over 40 years in construction and as a furniture manufacturer. Despite his ordeal he still faced discrimination in later years. He received no compensation from the state because he did not spend a full year at the concentration camp.