The Stojka family: Spatial mobility and territorial anchoredness of Lovara Vlax Roms in the former Czechoslovakia
Abstract
The book traces the history of a Romani family from the territory of today’s Slovakia across the 19th and 20th centuries. Working with a large body of diverse historical sources as well as with a wealth of ethnographic data, Markéta Hajská places the story of the Stojka family in two historical arenas: the history of Czechoslovakia, as an example of a newly-emerging Central European nation-state during a highly turbulent period of complex political changes, and the history of Roms in Central Europe as a heterogeneous ethnic group that has historically formed part of local multi-ethnic societies. The Stojka family belonged to a particular group of Roms, a minority within the diverse Slovak Romani population, self-identifying today as Lovara or Vlax Roms. The Lovara economies were based on regular trade routes of varying lengths across today’s Czech and Slovak Republics, Austria, Poland and Hungary. At the same time, contrary to the popular misconception of “travelling Gypsies” as non-belonging nomads, and notwithstanding the continuity of policing practices and securitisation of varying intensity directed at the people subsumed under this term by the changing state authorities, the Stojka family was also residentially and socially anchored in a particular local rural community through a network of diverse social relations including house ownership.
Full text
Markéta Hajská The Stojka family Spatial mobility and territorial anchoredness of Lovara Vlax Roms in the former Czechoslovakia KAROLINUM The book traces the history of a Romani family from the territory of today’s Slovakia across the 19th and 20th centuries. Working with a large body of diverse historical sources as well as with a wealth of ethnographic data, Markéta Hajská places the story of the Stojka family in two historical arenas: the history of Czechoslovakia, as an example of a newly-emerging Central European nation-state during a highly turbulent period of complex political changes, and the history of Roms in Central Europe as a heterogeneous ethnic group that has historically formed part of local multi-ethnic societies. The Stojka family belonged to a particular group of Roms, a minority within the diverse Slovak Romani population, self-identifying today as Lovara or Vlax Roms. The Lovara economies were based on regular trade routes of varying lengths across today’s Czech and Slovak Republics, Austria, Poland and Hungary. At the same time, contrary to the popular misconception of “travelling Gypsies” as non-belonging nomads, and notwithstanding the continuity of policing practices and securitisation of varying intensity directed at the people subsumed under this term by the changing state authorities, the Stojka family was also residentially and socially anchored in a particular local rural community through a network of diverse social relations including house ownership. Markéta Hajská | The Stojka family the stojka family_mont.indd 1the stojka family_mont.indd 1 09.12.2024 18:0409.12.2024 18:04
The Stojka family Spatial mobility and territorial anchoredness of Lovara Vlax Roms in the former Czechoslovakia Markéta Hajská KAROLINUM PRESS Karolinum Pressis a publishing department of Charles University Ovocný trh 560/5, 116 36 Prague 1, Czech Republic www.karolinum.cz © Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2024 Translation © Valerie Talacková, 2024 Photography © author’s private collections; Milan Vrba (p. 278, fig. 6, 7), 2024 Copyediting by Gwendolyn Hubka Albert Layout by Jan Šerých Set by Karolinum Press First edition Research for this book was financed by Grant no. 19-26638X, “Genocide, Postwar Migration and Social Mobility: Entangled Experiences of Roma and Jews”, funded by the Czech Science Foundation, carried out at Faculty of Arts, Charles University. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). ISBN 978-80-246-5917-6 ISBN 978-80-246-5918-3 (pdf) https://doi.org/10.14712/9788024659183 The original manuscript was reviewed by Pavel Baloun (Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague) and Martin Fotta (Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences).
Charles University Karolinum Press www.karolinum.cz [email protected]
Contents Acknowledgements 7 0. Introduction, methodology and theoretical basis 11 0.1 The aim and subject of this book 11 0.2 Vlax Roms and Lovara: Who are they? 15 0.3 Methodology 24 0.4 Theoretical base 43 Part 1: Before the creation of Czechoslovakia 53 1.1 Lovara on the territory of present-day Slovakia 53 1.2 Lovara in the Czech lands before the creation of Czechoslovakia 55 1.3 The roots of the Stojka family from Trenčianska Teplá 60 Part 2: The Interwar Period 71 2.1 Lovara territorial anchoring and spatial mobility in Slovakia 71 2.2 The Stojkas of Trenčianska Teplá in the interwar period 95 2.3 The transformation of the spatial mobility of the Lovara in the Czech lands after the creation of Czechoslovakia 119 Part 3: The eve of war 143 3.1 Increased Romani mobility in the Protectorate 143 3.2 Change of citizenship as a reason for leaving the Protectorate 148 3.3 Returning to Slovakia from the point of view of Lovara witnesses 150 Part 4: The Second World War 157 4.1 Roms during the Second World War on the territory of the Slovak State (1939–1945) 157 4.2 The situation of the Lovara on territory occupied by Hungary 169 4.3 The Second World War in Trenčianska Teplá 174 4.4 The end of the wartime chapter 191
Part 5: The postwar period 195 5.1 The forced departure of Roms from Trenčianska Teplá in 1947 195 5.2 The postwar trajectories of Štefan Stojka, Sr. 219 5.3 The trajectories of the late Zaga Stojková’s descendants 227 Part 6: The implementation of the law on the permanent settlement of travelling persons and its impact 245 6.1 The drafting of Act no. 74/1958 at the central level 245 6.2 The preparation of the register in Louny 251 6.3 The listing of persons in the register 260 Part 7: Conclusions 279 7.1 The interdisciplinary approach, combination of methods, broad spectrum of sources and other innovative aspects 280 7.2 Conclusions for individual historical periods 282 7.3 The position of Roms in society: The paternalism of the state, anti-gypsy policies and the agency of Roms 290 Appendix (photos) Bibliography and sources 293 List of abbreviations 302 Genealogical diagram 304 Index 306
7 Acknowledgements This book is the result of my work on the project “Genocide, Postwar Migration and Social Mobility: Entangled Experiences of Roma and Jews” (grant number 19–26638X), funded by the Czech Science Foundation, on which Iworked from 2019 to 2023. First and foremost, Iwould like to thank all the witnesses who were kind enough to share their memories with me, without whose willingness and openness this work could never have happened. Above all, Iwould like to thank Berci Stojka from Louny, the grandson of Anna Lakatošová and the great-grandson of Zaga Stojková. It was he who led me in his narrative to the unique Stojka family, which forms the subject of this book. Iwould also like to thank all the colleagues and friends with whom Iconsulted my conclusions and approaches and who advised me on how to take my research further, above all those who made valuable comments on my draft text, namely: Kateřina Čapková, László Csősz, Jan Grill, Dana Ema Hrušková, Jan Ort, Iveta Kokyová, Pavel Kubaník, Michaela Lônčiková, and Milada Závodská. Thank you to Zuzana Bodnárová for help with translations from Hungarian and to Eva Zdařilová for help with translations from German. Thank you to Zuzana Ramajzlová and the non-profit Člověk vtísni, o.p.s. [People in Need] for making available the testimonies of those seeking compensation for the period of the Second World War. Thank you also to employees of the state archives, the regional archives and the district archives, above all Jana Kuprová of the Louny archives and Soňa Michalcová of the state archive in Trenčín, as well as their other colleagues who willingly advised me and helped me select archival materials which might contain information on the family at the centre of my interest or on other Lovara, as well as on the implementation of measures targeting “travelling gypsies”.
8 I would like to express special thanks to Jan Červenka, Helena Sadílková and Lada Viková for their advice, support, comments and critical read-throughs of key passages, which enriched and advanced my perspective in many ways. Additional heartfelt thanks are due to Lada Viková for sharing her finds in local and regional archives, including concrete reports on “travelling gypsies”, among which were crucial records pertaining to members of the family who form the subject of my work. Iwould like to thank Milan Vrba, the owner of aprivate photo archive from the Trenčín district, and Pavol Pytlík, photo collector for the municipality of Trenčianska Teplá, for providing valuable historical photographs of the Stojka family, which enriched my book. Thank you also to reviewers Martin Fotta and Pavel Baloun for extremely painstaking, thought-provoking comments, made for the purposes of the publication of the work by Karolinum. Last but not least, Iwould like to thank my daughter Tamara for her patience with me while Iwas writing this book.
16 “copper beaters” or “copper engravers”, from the Romanian căldăraş or căldărar) and the communities related to them.6 Lovara on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia Ifocus herein on Vlax Roms living on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. They may be classified on the basis of language and their formerly dominant way of life as belonging to the Lovara group. This label is originally aprofessionym for horse dealers (from the Hungarian ló = horse). It is estimated that of the total number of 440,000 Roms living in Slovakia today7 approximately 5–15% belong to the Vlax Romani group.8 Today, most live in the strip of land bounded by Bratislava and Senec to the southwest, and by Topoľčany and Zlaté Moravce to the northwest (covering the districts of Šaľa, Galanta, Nové Zámky, Nitra, Komárno and Levice) and bounded to the southeast by the more geographically isolated communities in the district towns of Lučenec and Rimavská Sobota.9 It may be assumed that the percentage of Lovara in particular, as well as their geographical localisation in the above-mentioned districts, was similar even more than acentury ago, when Czechoslovakia was created, and seemingly also at the time when the story herein starts to unfold. 6 Elšík and Beníšek, “Romani dialectology”, 405. 7 Úrad splnomocnenca vlády SR pre rómske komunity (ÚSVRK), Atlas rómskych komunít 2019. Available at: https://www.minv.sk/?atlas-romskych-komunit. 8 The exact number of Lovara in Slovakia is not known. There are not even many approximate estimates, and those that exist tend to be cited in the literature over and over again without the actual state of the population being reliably ascertained. In this book Iuse Nina Pavelčíková’sestimates in Českoslovenští Romové vletech 1938–1945 (Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2004) and Milena Hübschmannová’sin Roma: Subethnic groups: Index of appellations (Graz: Rombase, 2003), which are also used by most authors who give numbers of Lovara in Slovakia and the Czech lands 9 In addition to the above-mentioned Lovara, we find agroup of Lovara that differs slightly in culture and language in eastern Slovakia in the districts of Prešov, Sabinov and Košice. This group of Lovara, numbering several hundred persons in Slovakia, uses the appelation Vlašika Rom to refer to itself (Markéta Hajská, “Ame sam vlašika haj vorbinas vlašika!”, Romano džaniben, vol. 19, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 35–53; Markéta Hajská, “Gažikanes vaj romanes?” in: Čierno-biele svety. Rómovia vmajoritnej spoločnosti na Slovensku, ed. Podolinská and Hrustič, 347–373 (Bratislava: Veda, Ústav etnológie SAV, 2015); Markéta Hajská, “‘Polokočovníci’. Migrační trajektorie olašských Romů na Prešovsku od poloviny 19. století do současnosti”, Romano džaniben vol. 23, no. 2 (Winter 2016): 7–37. At present, as seems to have also been the case historically, these Roms from eastern Slovakia have not maintained significant contacts with the Lovara from the south and southwest of Slovakia, with the exception of families from the southwest who took part in horse fairs in Košice or in other easterly directions.
17 There are several theories regarding the initial Lovara arrival on the territory of present-day Slovakia. According to some researchers, Vlax Roms started to leave Moldova and Wallachia in connection with the end of serfdom or slavery and to travel to other European countries, where they might not have arrived until the second half of the 19th century.10 Among Czech and Slovak authors, this circumstance is explicitly related to the Vlax Roms’ arrival on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia.11 Other researchers, however, have concluded that Vlax Roms left the territory of Moldova and Wallachia before the end of slavery there. Angus Fraser cast doubt on the idea that Vlax Roms remained in slavery until the mid-19th century and pointed out that many traditional cultural elements and the form of social structure and kinship relations preserved by these Roms are not compatible with time spent in slavery.12 Fraser connected the Vlax Roms’ ethnogenesis with the areas of Transylvania inhabited by the Romanian population, not the historical principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.13 The linguist Yaron Matras also inclines towards the idea that the Lovara dialect was formed on the territory of Transylvania, under the influence of contact with the Hungarian-speaking population.14 Some linguists provide proof that the Wallachian dialects of Romani gradually spread from their core area, in other words, Wallachia and Moldavia.15 Viktor Elšík states that although it is often thought these dialects’ dispersal outside of today’sRomania occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century after the abolition of Gypsy slavery/serfdom in Wallachia and Moldavia, it is likely that the Lovara 10 E.g. Ian Hancock, The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Karoma, 1987), 37; Ian Hancock, Země utrpení, trans. Karolína Ryvolová and Helena Sadílková (Praha: Signeta, 2001): 51–52; Jan Kochanovski, Gypsy Studies, part 1 (New Delhi: International Academy of Gypsy Culture, 1963), 86; Jean-Pierre Liegeois, Gypsies: An Illustrated history (London: Al Saqi, 1986), 45; Jean-Pierre Liegeois, Roma in Europe (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2007), 45; Rüdiger Vossen, Zigeuner (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1983), 58. 11 E.g. Milena Hübschmannová, Šaj pes dovakeras. Můžeme se domluvit (Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého, 2002), 21; Nina Pavelčíková, “Příchod olašských Romů na Ostravsko vpadesátých letech 20. století”, Romano džaniben, vol. 16, no. 1 (Summer 2009): 37; Šusterová, Život olašskych žien, 45. 12 Angus Fraser, “The Rom migrations”, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, no. 2 (1992): 39. 13 Ibid. 14 E.g. Yaron Matras, Romani: Alinguistic introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2002), 8. 15 Norbert Boretzky, Die Vlach-Dialekte des Romani. Strukturen, Sprachgeschichte, Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse, Dialektkarten. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003; Yaron Matras, “Mapping the Romani dialects of Romania”, Romani Studies, vol. 23, no. 2 (2013): 199–243, doi: 10.3828/rs.2013.11; Viktor Elšík, Petr Wagner and Margita Wagnerová, Olašská romština. Vlašské dialekty. (online). Praha: FF UK, 2005. Available at: http://ulug.ff.cuni.cz/lingvistika/elsik/Elsik_2005_HO _Vlax.pdf.
18 and related groups actually originated in Transylvania, so they might have arrived in Slovakia decades earlier.16 Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov state that some Roms also left Wallachia and Moldavia much earlier than the 19th century. They say that in the 16th and 17th centuries, the ancestors of today’sVlax Roms were already reaching areas of Poland and Ukraine, for example, or the Ottoman Empire’sborders.17 They believe that while the end of slavery was an important factor in the migration of Vlax Roms from Wallachia and Moldavia, it did not mark the start of, nor was it the main reason for, their migration to other parts of Europe.18 Marushiakova and Popov also put forward proof that the ancestors of today’sVlax Roms, the Laesi, had aspecial status during slavery in Wallachia and Moldavia, connected with the exercise of itinerant professions. These allowed them to move freely around the estates, to acertain extent, requiring only payment of atax on their earnings to the lords, and they were also allowed to cross state borders.19 Another researcher to posit an earlier date for the Vlax Roms’ arrival in the area of present-day Slovakia is Zbyněk Andrš, who cites, for example, Vlax Roms having been recorded on the territory of present-day Slovakia from the 18th century (or even earlier).20 Slovak ethnologist and Romani studies specialist Arne Mann also states that occurrences of the surname Stojka may be found on the territory of present-day Slovakia in the 18th century: he provides records from the area of Gemer and Košice for the period 1730–1760.21 My own previous research into registry office records for eastern Slovakia confirmed the presence of Lovara in that area prior to the years 1855 to 1856,22 in other words before the end of 16 Elšík, “Interdialect contact”, 47. 17 Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov, Gypsies in the Ottoman Empire:AContribution to the History of the Balkans (Hertfordshire: Univ. of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), 50. 18 Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov, “Segmentation vs. consolidation: The example of four Gypsy groups in CIS”, Romani Studies, vol. 14, no. 2 (2004): 169–170. 19 Marushiakova and Popov, “Segmentation vs. consolidation”, 167–168; Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov, “The Gypsy Court in Eastern Europe”, Romani Studies, vol. 17, no. 1 (2007): 75–76; Angus Fraser, Cikáni, trans. Marta Miklušáková (Praha: NLN, 1998), 54. 20 Zbyněk Andrš, “Our God is Gold: Vlashika Rom at aCrossroads?” Ethnologia Actualis, vol. 16, no. 2 (December 2016): 70. 21 Arne Mann, “Historický proces formovania rómskych priezvísk na Slovensku”, in: Milý Bore… profesoru Ctiborovi Nečasovi kjeho sedmdesátým narozeninám věnují přátelé, kolegové ažáci, Brno: HÚ AV ČR, 274–275. 22 Ifound records of the presence of the predecessors to today’s Lovara on the territory of eastern Slovakia in the registry books fromKráľovský Chlmec (1825), from Veľká Ida (1843), Ruskov (1844), Spišská kapitula (1856) and probably also from Belža in 1808 (Hajská, “‘Polokočovní-
19 slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia. At the beginning of the historical overview below, Ishall address the question of whether it is possible to find confirmation that Lovara were present in other areas of modern-day Slovakia at an earlier date as well. Lovara / Vlax Roms – choice of a suitable appellation From the very beginning of my work, Itried to find asolution to two fundamental challenges: how to define the category of Lovara / Vlax Roms and whom to include in it (see the chapter on theoretical underpinnings), and what term for them Iwould use in this book. Iam aware that use of the more precise and exact appellation “Lovara” (Romani pl. Lovára; sg. Lovári) is not particularly widespread on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia, either among academics or the Lovara themselves. The general term Vlax Roms is the one commonly used in academic discourse in both Czech and Slovak. The term is used with various nuances in both ethnographical and historical works on the Lovara.23 However, the problem with using the label Vlax Roms is that this term is ahypernym covering various subgroups. According to Hübschmannová, this umbrella term has, on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia, lost its hypernymic function and become alabel identifying only ci’”). The earliest record Ihave discovered is from 1747 and is of achild with the surname Stojka with anote saying Zingari. This shows that afamily with the surname Stojka was present in the mid-18th century in Košice (Ibid., 15). 23 Eg. Emília Čajánková, “Život akultura rožkovianských Cigánov”, Slovenský národopis, vol. 2, no. 1–2 (1954): 149–175 and 285–306; Emília Horváthová, Cigáni na Slovensku. Historicko-etnografický náčrt (Bratislava: Vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1964); Jelena Marušiaková, “Rodinný život valašských CigánovnaSlovenskuajeho vývinové tendencie”. Slovenský národopis, vol. 34, no. 4 (1986): 604–634; Lakatošová, “Některé zvyklosti”, 2–13; Davidová, Romano drom; Nina Pavelčíková, “Příchod olašských Romů na Ostravsko vpadesátých letech 20. století (ve světle dobových zpráv)”, Romano džaniben, vol. 16, no. 1 (Summer 2009), 37–66; Stojka and Pivoň, Náš život; Šusterová, Život olašskych žien; Andrš, “Our God”). While Čajánková– Horváthová and, in her earlier work in Slovakia, also Elena Marushiaková mainly used the term valašští Romové, Davidová alternated the Czech olašští Romové with the Romani equivalent Vlachicka Roma (which is an exoethnonym among speakers of north-central Romani, in other words, non-Vlax Roms, for Vlax Roms). Pivoň and Stojka (Stojka and Pivoň, Náš život) are following the same line of thought. Also, Zbyněk Andrš (Andrš, “Our God”) used the Romani ethnonym Vlašika Rom, which Iuse only in connection with Lovara living in the east of Slovakia, the only ones who use this term naturally and on adaily basis to refer to themselves. On the differences in the use of the adjective olašský, valašský and vlašický, see Igor Kutlík-Garudo, “Olaskí, valašskí alebo vlašickí Rómovia?” Romano džaniben, vol. 4, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 35–38.
20 the traditionally-itinerant horse traders who, elsewhere in the world, are known as the Lovara.24 The reason for this is that in recent decades, no other groups of Vlax Roms have lived on the territory of the former Slovakia, and so the appellation has become asynonym for the Lovara. Nevertheless, Iconsider it more precise to use the term Lovara in an international context, since in many countries this is just one group in the Vlax Rom category. It is for this reason that Ihave decided to use the term, although its use among Lovara in the successor states to the former Czechoslovakia is infrequent. Limited use of this term in the region by the Lovara themselves has also been confirmed by other researchers.25 According to an earlier work by Viktor Elšík, this professionym was either largely abandoned by Vlax Roms on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia or probably was never used.26 Nevertheless, on the basis of my own research, Ihave reached the opinion that the appellation has in recent years once again become more widespread among Vlax Roms. This may be aresult of the influence of contacts with Vlax Roms from other countries who are more likely to stress the difference between various Vlax subgroups, but it may also result from the influence of the Internet and social media networks, where the label is spreading. For the above-mentioned reasons, in the work that follows Iuse both terms alternately (Lovara and Vlax Roms) as asynonym. However, where the hypernymic function of the term Vlax Roms needs to be nuanced, Iof course differentiate and leave the term Vlax Roms in its superior position compared to the term Lovara, who, in the wider world, are just one of the subgroups. The appellation of the Lovara from their perspective So far Ihave focused mainly on this appellation as it is used in research, but we also need to look at the terms that Roms themselves use. Lovara from the south and southwest of Slovakia refer to themselves using an 24 Milena Hübschmannová, Roma: Sub ethnic groups: Index of appellations (Graz: Rombase, 2003), 2. 25 Hübschmannová, Roma: Sub ethnic groups, 1; Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov, “The Gypsy Court in Eastern Europe”, Romani Studies, vol. 17, no. 1 (2007): 68; Jan Červenka, “‘Cikán, Gypsy & Rom’– dynamika pojmenovávání Romů vrůzných diskurzech”, Čierno-biele svety. Rómovia vmajoritnej spoločnosti na Slovensku, ed. Podolinská, Tatiana and Hrustič, Tomáš (Bratislava: Veda, Ústav etnológie SAV, 2015), 327–8. 26 Elšík, “Interdialect contact”, 47.
21 ethnonym, most often amare Rom (“our Roms”), čače Rom (“real Roms”) or also Romane Rom (literally translated “Romani Roms”). They also use an exoethnonym from the majority languages, Olaskíva/Olašskíva Rom (the ending -íva being an ending typical of adjectival borrowings). To be precise, of course, the term that the Lovara most often use to refer to themselves is simply the word Rom (sg., pl. Rom), which is adenotation that all Lovara living in the south and southwest of Slovakia use to refer to themselves. They do not include those Roms whom they do not consider Vlax Roms in the term Rom at all, but refer to them using the concept Rumungri (pl., sg. Rumungro). This is an exoethnonym that the Lovara use to refer to all non-Vlax Roms in general, in other words, Roms from surrounding groups. The original meaning of the word Rumungro comes from Rom Ungro, or “Hungarian Rom”. This name was later extended by the Vlax Roms to include all the settled Roms in the Czech Republic and surrounding lands, and according to the context may have apejorative meaning. For this reason, when referring to Slovak or Hungarian Roms who are not Vlax Roms (or Lovara), Iprefer to use the academic term non-Vlax Roms rather than the not entirely neutral Rumungri. It is also common among the Lovara to identify individuals using the group name of aconcrete “family” group, referred to by the term kranga (“branch”), such as the Bougešti, Jovanešťi, Loulešťi, Ferkošti, Júcovára, Kurkešti and so on. The name of aparticular kranga is usually derived from the Romani nickname of the group’scommon ancestor (e.g. Bougo, Jovan, Loulo, Ferko, Júco, Kurko). As the genealogical memory of the family groups weakens, kranga are divided into new sub-groups and are renamed according to significant common ancestors who are accessible to the collective memory.27 Given that after analysing my respondents’ testimonies Iwas able to ascertain their membership of acertain kranga in just some cases, Iwill not use that category further in this book. From my respondents’ perspective, the use of sub-ethnic categorisation is (and always has been) clear and simple: The idea that one belonged to agroup of Roms was based on acommon origin and relations, sometimes labelled ablood tie, and on an objectively-existing, specific culture that clearly differentiates the Lovara from other Roms on the basis of signs they perceive as objectively definable (e.g. acommon language, cultural manifestations such as away of dressing, or economic strategies).28 During the interviews my respondents fully self-identified 27 Markéta Hajská, “Hranice jazyka jakožto hranice etnické identity. Vztah užívaní jazyka aetnické kategorizace uolašských Romů na východním Slovensku” (PhD diss., Charles University, 2020), 30. 28 Ibid., 58–60.
22 with the Lovara category without necessarily using this label. They included their forebears– parents, grandparents and other members of the extended family whom they always considered to be members of the same (sub-ethnic) group– in the category Lovara as well. They also included other families and family groups under this label whom they did not consider their relatives. Roms, “gypsies” and “gypsy vagabonds” In this book, Iuse the ethnically-defined word Roms, referring either equally to all Roms or as an umbrella term29 that also includes the Lovara. However, the term “Rom, Roms” was fundamentally absent from all the period sources with which Iworked.30 All Czechoslovak legislation and the entire state administration, whether during the interwar First Republic, in wartime, or postwar, exclusively used the term “gypsy, gypsies” (Cz. cikán, cikáni). Later on, above all during the postwar period, specific terms such as “citizens of gypsy origin” or “the gypsy question” can be found, while in the interwar and wartime period it was also common to find the negative term “gypsy nuisance”. To refer to groups which were observed to be geographically mobile, the archival materials across the decades which Istudy here use terms such as “travelling gypsies”, “gypsy vagabonds” and “gypsy travellers”. The term “Gypsies” (Cikáni) is atraditional label for the Romani minority in the Czech environment used by the majority population. Its most commonly-used form, written in the archival materials of the period with asmall “c”, reflects the way in which these people were perceived as asocial class of the majority population. They were not regarded as anation in their own right founded on their membership of an ethnic group and use of acommon language.31 29 The definition of the term Rom/roms are looked at in detail by Jan Červenka (Červenka, “‘Cikán, Gypsy & Rom’”). Unlike the Lovara themselves, however, in line with most researchers, I include under this heading non-Vlax Roms living on this territory, with the exception of Sinti, for whom Iuse, separately, their own term (in Czech, Sinto/Sinti/Sintové). 30 The term Rom or Roms first started to be publicly used in the Czechoslovak context in the 1960s, above all in connection with the activity of the Svaz Cikánů-Romů (Union of Gypsies/ Roms), the first officially-permitted Romani organisation in Czechoslovakia, functioning between 1969 and 1973. After falling into disuse in the following two decades it was not until the 1990s that it started to be used abundantly (Červenka, “‘Cikán, Gypsy & Rom’”, 335). However, the documents that Iuse date from before this time and do not reflect the label Roms in any way. 31 Tomáš Zapletal, “Přístup totalitního státu ajeho bezpečnostních složek kRomské menšině vČeskoslovensku (1945–1989)”, Sborník Archivu bezpečnostních složek 10, Praha: Archiv bez pečnostních složek 2012: 14.
23 Equivalents of the terms “Gypsy/Gypsies” were also used to refer to Roms in many other countries. Ilsen About and Anna Abakunova have pointed out that the process of defining who is to be considered a“Gypsy” has always been connected with the labelling of persons as Roms and Sinti by the authorities. Since this process has undergone considerable change over time, it is not at all clear, they say, whether the persons so labelled actually shared acommon ethnic identity. According to these authors, despite the growth in the historiography of the identification and categorisation of persons in the 20th century, it is still necessary to pay due attention to the identification methods and everyday practices of the Romani and Sinti populations themselves.32 The appellation “Gypsies”, in various historical contexts, served to denote considerably heterogenous groups which, according to the connotations of the period, may also have included travelling tradesmen, actors and showmen, pedlars and other people with atravelling lifestyle who were not ethnic Roms and were mostly lumped together under the Czech term světští.33 This broad definition of the term “gypsies” is found above all in the First Republic Act no. 117/1927, Coll., “on wandering gypsies”, which defined “wandering gypsies” on the basis of their lifestyle as “gypsies who wander from place to place and other vagabonds who avoid work and live agypsy lifestyle, even if for part of the year– above all in winter– they have apermanent dwelling place in either case”.34 The law used adual definition of the target group: “wandering gypsies” and “other vagabonds”, and was related to an unspecified “gypsiness”, based on the idea of “innate nomadism” which was perceived as atypical characteristic of the “Gypsies”.35 The term “gypsies” (cikáni) which Icame across in the state archives is an external categorisation that does not in any way reflect the internal di32 Ilsen About and Anna Abakunova, The Genocide and Persecution of Roma and Sinti. Bibliography and Historiographical Review (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, 2016), 12. 33 Hanka Tlamsová, Lexikon světem jdoucích (Brno: Nakladatelství PhDr. Josef Sperát, 2020). 34 Act no. 117/1927 of 14 July 1927, “on wandering gypsies”, section 1. 35 Pavel Baloun, “‘Cikáni, metla venkova!’ Tvorba auplatňování proticikánských opatření vmezi vá lečném Československu, za druhé republiky avpočáteční fázi Protektorátu Čechy aMorava (1918–1941).” (PhD diss., Charles University, 2020), 46. Pavel Baloun has performed adetailed analysis of the anti-gypsy measures of the time, not just in the area of criminology and police prevention, but also in the broader debate on the “Gypsy question.” He focused on the rationalisation of the period category “Gypsiness” connected with the entrenched assumption of criminologists that “Gypsies” represented aspecific group of criminals (Ibid., 56). They were often labelled the “scourge of the countryside” and in the context of this term were considered permanently suspicious people who had to be regularly controlled and subjected to police raids (Ibid., 59–65).
24 vision of Roms into individual groups. Asimilar conclusion was reached by historian Celia Donert, who found the label “Gypsies” was used in interwar Czechoslovakia to refer to awide range of groups. The term could, she says, relate to German-speaking Sinti, settled Moravian Roms, Slovakand Hungarian-speaking Roms or peripatetic Vlax Roms.36 Following the example of other authors,37 Ihave decided to use the term “gypsies” and its equivalents given above, as well as other period labels, only in scare quotes. Iretain the form of writing them with asmall initial letter that can be found in the documents. My main reason for doing this is an attempt to maintain the categories of the period and its specific discourse, including the language used. Iam aware that if Iwere to use the word “Rom” where the period documents use “gypsy”, Iwould be guilty of considerable imprecision, since the two categories do not overlap and have different connotations. 0.3 Methodology This book is the result of an interdisciplinary approach, combining above all ethnographic, socioanthropological and historical methods. In terms of sources, it is based on acombination of archival research and interviews with witnesses. At some times, in particular when reconstructing events from the period preceding the Second World War, Iwas forced to rely exclusively on state archives. When researching the period from the Second World War onwards, Iwas able to add testimonies as asignificant source from Roms in the Stojka family researched here, as well as from other Lovara families and other witness testimonies. Itried to combine these with other sources. Iuse different types of sources for various periods, diversified with regard to whether they are from Slovakia or the Czech lands. 36 Celia Donert, The Rights of the Roma: The Struggle for Citizenship in Postwar Czechoslovakia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 19. 37 For example, Pavel Baloun, “Metla našeho venkova!” Kriminalizace Romů od první republiky až po prvotní fázi protektorátu (1918–1941) (Praha: FHS UK– Scriptorium, 2022); Victoria Shmidt and Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Historicizing Roma in Central Europe: between critical whiteness and epistemic injustice (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021); Dušan Slačka, “Usazení kočovníků nebo řešení „cikánské otázky“? Kočovníci na Hodonínsku aprovádění opatření podle zákona č. 74/1958 Sb.” Bulletin Muzea Romské kultury, 23 (2014): 57–70; Matěj Spurný, Nejsou jako my. Česká společnost amenšiny vpohraničí (1945–1960) (Praha: Antikomplex, 2011); Zapletal, “Přístup totalitního státu”.
25 Reflexivity and the course of the research The beginnings of my research into the Lovara family with the surname Stojka date to December 2018, when Ivisited Berci Stojka (*1949 in Louny) to record, as part of an earlier research project of mine, his memories of forced sedentarisation and the implementation of the law banning itinerancy. The name Berci is of course anickname (romano ánav, literally, Romani name). During avisit of several hours, he provided me with ahighly detailed testimony touching not just on the events connected with the settling of his family in the old brickworks in Louny in the second half of the 1950s, but also on specific information regarding his family and the routes along which they travelled before coming to Louny. The amount of detailed information that emerged from the interview compelled me to set out for the state archives in Louny, where Iacquainted myself with the archives of the District National Committee (Okresní národní výbor– ONV, the socialist-era state administration at the district level) concerning the “gypsy” population register and the list of travelling persons in both the Louny district and the former Žatec district. On that first visit to the Louny archives, Idiscovered aconsiderable amount of information that matched very precisely what Berci Stojka had told me. However, the angle from which these facts were being interpreted by the documentary record differed diametrically from his. Among the persons included on the list made on the basis of Act no. 74/1958 Iidentified, from the names and nicknames given to me, Berci’sgrandmother Anna Stojková, née Lakatošová, with the Romani nickname Čaja, as well as his uncles with the Romani names Bobko and Janino, his great-uncle Jouško (Anna’sbrother-in-law) and other members of the family about whom Berci Stojka had told me. With this basic information (i.e., names, places they stayed, birthdates and birthplaces), Ibegan intensive research in regional archives in the Czech Republic and later also in Slovakia, where Itried to find any possible record of the sojourn or movement of the Stojka family from the interwar to the postwar period. Still, for all that Berci’smemories of his childhood and youth were detailed and vivid, his knowledge of his family’slife before they came to Bohemia from Slovakia after the Second World War was fairly patchy. He said that his family had “travelled”, that they had never been settled anywhere and that they had come “from Slovakia”, but in our first interview he was unable to remember the precise place or region. It thus became all the more of achallenge for me to ascertain where his family came from and around which area(s) they had moved before the postwar period.
32 reports from municipal authorities and, for the postwar period, the files of regional and district administrations, as well as other documents concerned with the movements of “travelling gypsies” somehow. Ilooked for key documents containing official procedures and orders relating to this category, as well as lists of such persons and any other reports regarding their movements on the territory of specific municipalities and districts. Iam aware that sources from the state authorities at various levels provide aone-sided view of “gypsies”, formed from records of clashes between the state system and the Roms, and that there is therefore aneed to approach such sources as biased and to continually reflect on the bias in the available materials. The historian Michal Schuster points out that the use of written materials from majority-population officials involves anumber of limitations, above all the limited, one-sided views of such officials at the regional or central levels.50 It was these officials who contributed to the implementation, recording and passing of various measures regarding “gypsies” and those specifically aimed at “travelling gypsies”. Without thorough study and contextualisation of these documents, including areflection on the historical processes of how people who were viewed at the time as being on the fringes of society were treated, only limited use can be made of them. There is also aneed, with period sources, to be aware of the continual formation of the stereotypical “travelling gypsy”, “gypsy vagabond” or just plain “gypsy”, of whom a“tendency to itinerancy” is considered aself-evident feature. This perception of “gypsies” finds its way into documents, decrees and orders, not just in the interwar and postwar periods, but also during socialism, even though the ideology of that time had officially disavowed racial discrimination. Differentiation among kinds of “travelling gypsies” in state records When conducting research in the Italian archives, researcher Paola Trevisan posed aquestion related to the identification of Roms that is also key for my study: How can we analyse the persistence of Romani families across historical periods? She believes that “we need to research what traces were left in the archives by people who were identified by the state institutions as ‘gypsies’ and how these records may be interpreted from 50 Michal Schuster, “Jinak bychom tady nebyli.” Příběh rodiny Dychovy zobce Hrušky (okr. Břeclav), Romano džaniben, vol. 27, no. 2 (Winter 2020): 9.
33 an ethnographical perspective”.51 The question occurs as to whether, or how, state institutions differentiated between groups of “travelling gypsies” and on what they based such differentiation. In the Czech lands, the Lovara may be identified in the state records from the period of the First Republic until the end of the 1950s in acategory that is, in most cases, described as “travelling gypsies /gypsy vagabonds”. Arare exception consists of some local records in the area of southern Slovakia, where the note “Vlax gypsy”, or its Hungarian equivalent “oláh gypsy” (oláh cigány),52 appears sporadically as early as the interwar period in some records. This term appears repeatedly as information on the profession of the person in question. Idid not come across this term in the Bohemian or Moravian archives for this period at all. The “gypsies” mentioned in the state records are sometimes differentiated according to their profession or livelihood. With acertain amount of caution, it is possible to find Lovara under the profession of horse trader, but horse trading was something in which Bohemian and Moravian Roms and Sinti also engaged. Moreover, the testimonies show that some Lovara families earned their living in other ways which also required mobility, such as by cleaning kettles, sharpening knives, metalworking or collecting feathers or rags. It is difficult to differentiate these families from other Roms. Some state institutions’ records differentiated between “gypsies” according to their places of origin– the region or state from which they came. Lovara families, it may be assumed with great probability, fall into the category labelled “gypsy (travelling) hordes from Slovakia”, but it cannot be ruled out that this term may have also been used to describe, for example, Sinti whose domicile was in Slovakia. The only reasonably reliable method of establishing that certain archival records concern Lovara is to focus just on archival materials containing specific surnames found only with Lovara (see below). Ionly compared records of this kind with information on families or localities available from my long-term research into this subject. However, the problem with my method, identifying Lovara families on the basis of 51 Trevisan, Austrian “Gypsies”, 61–62. 52 Found during the interwar period (ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. ONÚ Dolná Seč – Trestné listy 1908–1938: repeated occurrence), during the Second World War (ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. Hlavnoslúžnovský úrad vLevicích zlet 1938–1944: repeated occurrence), and also during the communist period (ŠA Nitra/ Nové Zámky, f. ONV Nové Zámky, i. č. Vn. 17, k. 238, zpráva Rady MNV vTvrdošovcích (8. 8. 1955), č. j. 1420/1955 mentions 36 Oláh Roms living in brick houses in the municipality).
34 surname, is the fact that Romani surnames in the state archives tend to be fairly rare, which gives us alimited amount of archival material with which to work. Municipal police reports often concerned the movements and arrivals of specific individuals and police checks of them. The only person whose name was given in such reports was the “leader of the horde”, in whose name an itinerancy document was drawn up. The number of group members was often given at the end, but the individual members were listed only exceptionally. Atypical report contained the name, birthdate and birthplace, the number of the leader’s“gypsy” identification card or itinerancy document, the size of the “horde”, the place where the police checked them, and either adescription of the alleged offence committed or astatement that the group was “without fault”. The difficulty in identifying the Lovara in archival sources has also been dealt with by historian Rastislav Černý. In his study on the Lovara, involving migration trajectories in the Místek district during the interwar period, he worked with records which had categories defined as “hordes of Gypsies” or “vagabond Gypsies from Slovakia”.53 Černý believes records pertaining to Lovara may be distinguished from records pertaining to Slovak (non-Vlax) Roms according to their method of mobility: While Lovara tended to move about in groups with horses and wagons, Slovak non-Vlax Roms frequently came on foot in small groups, and often just frequented areas in the vicinity of the border.54 Ibelieve an exception may have been the Sinti families who, like the Lovara, moved about in horsedrawn wagons and over awider area that went beyond the border area. Searching across the archives for records on the movements and stays of specific families As part of my archival research, Ispecifically focused across the various localities on the movements and stays of people from the Stojka family, using the genealogical diagram described above. Ialso followed other individuals and families with the surname Stojka, as well as other surnames typical of Lovara (Sztojka, Rafael, Kudrik, Banda, Lakatoš, Daniš, Bihari/Bihary, in combination with Lakatos/Lakatoš) who might be expected to belong to the Lovara category on the basis of their described 53 Rostislav Černý, “Lovárové vdobě první republiky– na příkladu okresu Místek.” Romano džaniben, vol. 19, no. 1 (Summer 2012): 11. 54 Ibid., 11.
35 lifestyle or place of origin, who were often jointly recorded with other families of Lovara. Searching the archival records by surname was something that Ihad also done for the earlier period in the digitalised registers of births, marriages and deaths. In particular, Ianalysed records relating to the above-mentioned surnames where the registers included a note confirming these were “gypsies”, “gypsy vagabonds”, “vagabonds” or even “Wallachians”.55 This method is one of the few ways of finding information on Roms from certain families, or even just the places where they stayed or moved about. However, it involves various difficulties, above all the fact that this type of search is fairly demanding. The archives differ considerably in the extent to which collections of this type have been preserved, and so it is far from assured that aresearcher will be able to find archival material across the Czech and Slovak archives containing, for example, First Republic municipal police orders on the stays of “gypsy hordes” for aparticular district. Although Idid manage to find such collections, only some archival materials contained the names and personal data of “travelling gypsies” with which it was possible to work further. Still, finding records pertaining to the Stojka family was even more complicated. In this regard, it was agreat advantage that some of the first names in the family were highly unique. The first name “Zaga”, borne by the oldest woman who was the leading personage in amain branch of the Stojka family, is extremely rare. It is afirst name that is found only very sporadically in both the Czech and Slovak environments56 and hardly appeared at all during the period in question, although it was sometimes possible to find it in Croatia, Serbia or Moldova.57 Hungarian researcher Rudolf Horváth gives the name Zaga as an example of an old-fashioned Romani female nickname,58 so it is probable that this nickname (romano 55 This was anote written in Hungarian indicating that aparticular person was avándorló cigány or kóborgó cigány (i.e., a“gypsy vagabond”) or an oláh cigány (“Vlax Gypsy”, with the original meaning of “Romanian Gypsy” [Bodnárová 2009: 9]); in registers written in Latin, the notes state the person was azingarius peregrinus, zingos peregrinos, zingarius vagabundus, zingara sub tentorio (sleeping in atent), etc., or relating their identity to Wallachia: zingarus valachicus, feminine zingari valachici. 56 The online source Slovenské krstné mená začínajúce na Zága (web-stranka.sk) lists this name (spelt Zága) among Slovak names, but other sources do not mention it. 57 According to online sources, this was avery rare name even in Croatia (https://actacroatica .com/en/name/Zaga) and also in Serbia and Moldova (https://mondonomo.ai/forename /Zaga). 58 Rudolf Horváth, Amagyarországi kóbor czigányok nyelvtana Czigány-Magyar Szótár (Szeged: Primaware Kiadó, 2014), 43.
36 ánav, literally Romani name) was extant among the Slovak Lovara previously. However, Idid not manage to find, in the former Czechoslovakia, arecord of any other person with the full name Zaga Stojková. It is this fact that helped me to identify the data on this person as unique. Likewise, the name of Zaga’sson, Filo Stojka, was unique. The name Filo may be considered afamiliar form of the common first name Filip, but officially-recorded shortened forms of names were at that time extremely rare– and yet the Filo Stojka whom Iwas interested in was recorded across the former Czechoslovakia as Filo and not Filip, although it was common practice for the Czech authorities and police to record the Czech equivalents of Slovak names (so Juraj was recorded as Jiří, Peter as Petr, Pavol as Pavel, etc.). The first name of Zaga’sdaughter Kuluš, also found in some records as Kuluše or Kuluša, was also extremely rare, and from what Icould find did not appear anywhere else in the former Czechoslovakia. Once again, it was clearly an officially-recorded romano ánav. This was also the case with the nickname of Zaga’sdaughter Grófa, although in her case the name is now once again widespread among the Lovara. In the latter case, however, Icame across several occurrences of this románo ánav officially recorded as afirst name in the form Grófa, Grófka or Grófojka. These rare first names made it easy to find information on their bearers and to identify them with the family being researched herein. It was also possible to identify other people who had much more frequent or extremely common names and travelled across Czechoslovakia with the holders of the above-mentioned rare names. These included Filo Stojka’swife Anna Lakatošová, married surname Stojková, his sister Barbora Stojková, married surname Horvátová, and his brothers-in-law Juraj and Antonín Horvát. Impediments to and difficulties with the method of searching for Lovara on the basis of surname The situation was entirely different when it came to looking for records on another branch of the family represented by Štefan Stojka, Senior (*1891), his son Ján (*1905) or his grandsons, also named Štefan Stojka, and other members of the family who had very common names. Icould not use data on persons named Ján or Štefan Stojka without further personal data to verify their identities because these names were also found at the same time in anumber of other Lovara families and it would have
37 been easy to confuse them. Iwas able to work with data on aperson named Ján or Štefan Stojka only if further personal data, such as the date and place of birth or the name of the partner and children, were also given. At the same time, it is important to remember that when communicating among themselves, the Lovara exclusively used their Romani nicknames, which were rarely recorded in majority-society, official records, and if they were, then frequently with spelling mistakes mangling the Romani words. For example, the nickname of Ján Rafael, recorded as Gulgo,59 was probably in fact Guglo (“sweet”), and the nickname recorded for Anna Lakatošová, Jedra,60 was clearly meant to be Sedra, which is still avery common nickname used by Lovara women. Their official names were of only limited significance to Roms, and they themselves used them only in contact with officials and security forces. The personal identity of Roms was created in their own community of family ties and by using special names (nicknames). Their officially-registered first names and surnames had little significance for the Roms in question and would sometimes be changed over the course of their lifetimes.61 These romane ánava gave Roms the ability to confuse their identities, to make them unclear, an providing them with opportunity for escape, concealment and defence, and not just against non-Roma persecution, but also in the sense of magical protection.62 Since official names were not used by the Roms with each other, it frequently happened that more than one child in afamily was given the same official first name. This fact is, of course, extremely confusing for the researcher. Although Iwas aware that this situation could occur, Inevertheless found that when creating the genealogical map, there was adiscrepancy in the data concerning the son of Ján Stojka (*1905), named Štefan, for whom various archival materials gave birth dates of 1919, 1923 and 1933. Although Iasked myself whether there might not be more than one son named Štefan in this nuclear family, Ithought it improbable. That the name really did occur repeatedly among these siblings was first confirmed to me by Báno Bihary, the grandson of Štefan Stojka (*1919) and the great-great-grandson of Štefan Stojka, Sr. (*1891): 59 SOkA Pelhřimov, f. OU Kamenice n. L, i. č. 1008, k. 510. Hlášení Okresnímu úřadu vKamenici, Stanice Horní Cerekev č. 17 (1. 8. 1934). 60 Ibid. 61 Eva Thurner, “Bez státní příslušnosti (téměř) až do konce života. Zvláštní úpravy práva na získání státního občanství pro „Romy“ („Cikány“)” Romano džaniben,vol. 16, no. 1 (Summer 2009): 67–68. 62 Hübschmannová, Šaj pes dovakeras, 63–65.
38 My great-grandmother had seven children– four daughters and three sons. The sons were all called Štefan. The eldest was born in 1919, that was my grandfather and they called him Turko. Then there was another, born in 1923, and then another, about 10 years younger. He died two years ago in Prague.63 The difference and apparent lack of connection between the Romani nicknames and the official names of Roms understandably complicates historical analysis and the creation of agenealogical diagram, above all when information from respondents is being linked to archival records. Witnesses frequently cannot remember the official names of their Romani relatives and friends beyond their closest relations. They just remember the Romani nicknames, which feature only sporadically and imprecisely in official records. Data on individual persons may thus be linked only after careful consideration of all the information and continual comparison with the genealogical diagram, an essential working tool. Another variable that complicates the historical analysis of documents and the ascribing of data to individuals or families is the fact that some Roms who moved across various localities would occasionally use false names. This is something that the historian Pavel Baloun came across in his research, finding that the police, when arresting “gypsies”, would continually complain about the use of false names by these persons to mask their identity. Baloun interpreted the use of false names by Roms as creating acertain manoeuvring space in order to avoid persecution by local authorities.64 Some Romani witnesses confirmed that giving bogus names was common practice among their Romani forebears, for example the Lovara Mária Lakatošová (*1951)65 or, in detail, Tony Lagryn from aSinti family in an interview for Romano džaniben.66 As an example of the considerable administrative confusion surrounding acertain person, connected with such deliberate mystification and the giving of various names, Ishall use Grófa Stojková from the Stojka family researched here, the youngest daughter of Zaga Stojková. Various personal details appear in official records pertaining to Grófa from childhood onwards, and this continued until she obtained her first 63 Personal recording with “Báno” Bihary (1958) recorded by Pavel Kubaník on 3. 10. 2008 in Roudnice nad Labem, Czech Republic. 64 Baloun, “Metla našeho venkova”, 50. 65 Personal recording by the author with Mária Lakatošová (1951), recorded in Pečky on 24. 4. 2018. 66 Jana Horváthová, “Rozhovor sTony Lagrynem: Já už dneska se nedívám, kdo co jí, ale kdo jakej je, to mě život naučil. Životní příběh Tonyho Lagryna,” Romano džaniben, vol. 20, no. 1 (Summer 2012): 105–139.
39 identity card in 1959 after the registration of “travelling persons” under Act no. 74/1958 by the local administration (MNV) in Louny. On that occasion she was ascribed abirthdate of March 1924 and her birthplace was given as Louny, where she had definitely not been born.67 In the official records, Grófa first appears under the name Grófojka (aRomani diminutive of the name Grófa) on alist of “gypsies” camping in Mnichovice, then part of Říčany district, in the year 1931. Next to her name the age of eight years was listed, corresponding to abirthdate in 1923.68 During the war, in 1942, Grófa was recorded in Trenčianska Teplá with her date of birth and birthplace given as 1923, Veľké Topoľčany. In the postwar period she suddenly appears in official records under the name Zaga Fatona/Fatonová, which was acombination of her mother’sfirst name and the (clearly mangled) surname of her father.69 The authorities’ confusion regarding Grófa Stojková’s identity is also shown by arecord from the district administration (ONV) in Litovel dating from July 1953 that deals intensively with the identity of aperson who used, alternately, the name Grófa Stojková, Pinka Stojková, Helena Kudriková and Helena Lakatošová, née Stojková. The authorities finally declared her correct name to be the last one stated, Helena Lakatošová, and her correct date of birth to be May 1927.70 However, going by the names of this person’schildren, which correspond exactly to other data, this was in fact Grófa Stojková. The name Grófa Stojková also appears on the register in Louny from January 1959, where her date of birth is given as July 1923 and her birthplace as Trenčianska Teplá. However, the birth date of March 1924 that was decided on by the authorities and inscribed in her identity card in 1959 in Louny is definitely not correct, because it 67 The practice of the local administrations in the period after the register was, however, to give people whose birthplace was unclear an officially-designated birthplace, so that the place of birth would be the same as the place of registering. The same practice is described in his application for acertificate under law 255/1946 by J. R., born in January 1943 in southern Slovakia, who was officially designated as having been born in Nová Paka, in the Jičín district of eastern Bohemia, which was also the place that he was registered in 1959. Source VÚA-VHA Praha, f. Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelůovydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb., personal file of applicant J. R. (1943). 68 SOkA Přemyšlení. OU Říčany, i. č. 427, ev. č. 246– Výkaz cikánů potulných přistižených vroce 1931 četnickou stanicí vMnichovicích. 69 The right spelling was Facuna. ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, i. č. 99, k. 23– Evidencia cigáňov 1942. 70 The record states that the supply of names meant that she could not be found by the security bodies all over the state. ZA vOpavě– pobočka Olomouc, f. KNV Olomouc, Národnostní poli tika sign. 608, i. č. 1745, k. 1029, 1951–1958. (Here fol. 649– Úprava poměrů osob cikánského původu– zpráva za 1. pololetí 1953, zn. III-215–30/6–1953/kr. (1. 7. 1953).
40 is just aweek before the birthdate of her brother Josef (Jouško), who in fact was ayear younger than her. Anonymisation and research ethics My study includes research into various periods of history for which there are different limitations on the use of personal data. From the perspective of research ethics, it is achallenge that the research focus falls into the fields of both historical research and social science (above all, social anthropology and ethnology). It was necessary, therefore, right from the initial phase of analysing the data and writing this book to balance the different approaches taken by historians and social scientists toward anonymising names and the personal data not just of respondents, but of the people whose names Ihad identified mostly from archival research. In Romani studies, in the field of social and cultural anthropology, it is customary to anonymise names and localities in view of the potential consequences for respondents arising from interpretations of the research findings. From the historical research perspective, however, anonymisation is amore complicated step that prevents the further verifying of sources, mainly archival ones.71 Afurther aspect of historical research is its emphasis on enabling scholars to build on previously researched and published data that they expand further through their own exploration. Ithus have an obligation not just to previous researchers, but to contemporary and future ones, as well as to the descendants of the families who worked with me,72 who will potentially have an interest in the lives of their predecessors. On the other hand, from the social sciences research perspective, acertain degree of anonymisation is essential in working with living respondents, since such research publishes sensitive personal data, including data on their ethnic identity and other sensitive matters which could have an unfavourable impact on these living persons. Itherefore decided on acompromise that balances the approaches of both academic disciplines. In the historical research, Igive entire, non-anonymised names (i.e., the whole first names and surnames, plus nicknames, if I know them) of people who are already dead. Since personal data is legally protected for 100 years from birth,73 this chiefly 71 Baloun, “Metla našeho venkova”, 40. 72 Viková, “Dlouhá cesta”, 54. 73 Tlamsová, Lexikon, 11.
41 concerns those who were born over 100 years ago, i.e., persons born up until the middle of the 1920s. In the case of people born more recently who were active from approximately the postwar period, Idecided to use– with the exception of people from whom Ihave personal consent to do otherwise– just their Romani nicknames, if Ihave them, or the initial of the first name accompanied by the surname (e.g., R. Stojková). This is because to use both initials (e.g., R. S.) would make no sense in the case of the Stojka family, as it is obvious that the final initial S. is ashortening of the surname Stojka/Stojková. The Romani name (nickname), on the other hand, is almost unknown to outsiders, and thus guarantees alevel of anonymity for the outer world while providing “full data”, allowing rapid identification, for members of the narrator’sfamily or of the local Vlax community. Moreover, Romani names (romane ánava) are not unique and are repeated with afrequency similar to the repetition of common first names, and so they also guarantee anonymity for the persons described somewhat. Ialso use the Romani nicknames of living persons only with their full agreement. In this way Ianonymise the names of my respondents who are connected to the Stojka family and with whom Irecorded more extensive memories. Igive the full names of other Lovara respondents with whom Irecorded memories during previous research projects, if they gave me signed consent to the publishing of their names. Some video interviews which Irecorded or took part in recording as the questioner have already been published on the website Romea.cz as “The Memory of the Roma”74 or on the YouTube channel “Vlach Roma Testimony”,75 and these interviewees had given their written consent to such publication. In the case of interviews where Idid not secure such consent, Iuse just their initials. An exception is the use of acollection for which there are other norms established by its owner concerning the publishing of personal data. In these cases, Iproceeded in accordance with the rules established by the owner of the collection. Acase in point is the database of personal testimonies of those who in 2001 and 2002 applied for compensation for genocide during the Second World War, which are stored in the archive of the nonprofit organisation Člověk vtísni o.p.s. [People in Need] in the Czech Republic. This is aunique source containing intimate, emotionally-charged, highly sensitive testimonies which need to be handled with great caution. On the basis of an agreement with the organisation’sstaff, 74 Online link: www.pametromu.cz. 75 Full online link: https://www.youtube.com/@vlachromatestimony9781.
48 and traded in the area around those villages.90 Ethnographic research concerning Roms who lived for generations in the Slovak countryside shows varying ways in which the category of place is connected with acertain social status and how it plays apart not just in understanding the position of Roms in local socioeconomic hierarchies, but also in the structuring of relationships between the Roms themselves.91 It was from this category in the past that all individuals drew their identity in local societies, which had afundamental influence on their belonging and overall on the position of Roms in local socioeconomic hierarchies, above all in rural environments. However, the question of belonging to aplace is much more complicated in the case of those Roms who in the historical and ethnographic literature are standardly perceived as “travelling”. When it comes to the Roms seen as “travelling” the patterns of their local socioeconomic networks may follow, to acertain extent, patterns similar to the Roms seen as “settled”. Despite the received notion of the Lovara as typical representatives of “travelling” Roms who are seen as having no spatial ties, when researching their history it is possible to find examples of long-term spatial links to specific locations, as well as their belonging to certain places. It is achallenge to focus on how the Lovara themselves related to the spaces through which they moved, how they described their spatial mobility, and what reason they gave for it. My first research investigating the question of Lovara territorial ties in connection with their concurrent ongoing territorial mobility concerned agroup that had settled in eastern Slovakia in the second half of the 19th century in avillage that Icall “Borovany”.92 In 1918, seven Roms bought some land there outside the municipality on which, over the next few years, aRomani settlement developed. By the time of the Second World War it had several dozen wooden houses and afew hundred in90 Aspasia Theodosiou, ‘Be-longing’ in a‘doubly occupied place’: The Parakalamos Gypsy musicians case.Romani Studies, vol.14, no. 1 (December 2004): 25–58. 91 Jan Ort, “Romové jako místní obyvatelé? Přináležení, cikánství apolitika prostoru ve vesnici na východním Slovensku.” Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, vol. 57, no. 5 (2021): 3–4. 92 In the case of the municipality that Icall Borovany, Iam giving an anonymised name, unlike the other real names. The decision to use the made-up name “Borovany” was made because previous works with asocioanthropological and sociolinguistic orientation contained sensitive information on the members of this community. In order to maintain continuity, Ialso used the anonymised name of this municipality in other work, including this book, where Ijust mention this municipality briefly. Iam aware of the limitations that come from the use of anonymisation in historical texts, but Ido so in order to protect my respondents, who wished to remain anonymous.
49 habitants.93 In its day it was probably the largest Lovara community in Slovakia to be territorially connected to aconcrete municipality. During my attempt to reconstruct, on the basis of witness statements and archival findings, the spatial trajectories of the “Borovany” Roms, Ireached the conclusion that their spatial mobility was various in its forms and geographical scope depending on afamily’ssocial status. While some families created and maintained longer circuits of travel in the interwar period, crossing the borders of Czechoslovakia and the internal border between the Czech lands and Slovakia, other families moved in medium circuits around neighbouring districts, while those lowest on the social scale only maintained short circuits in their immediate vicinity. These routes could change gradually over time, depending on the circumstances. At the same time, until the borders were closed in 1939, “Borovany” was an important (and probably also aregular) stopping place on the routes of other Vlax Roms from Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Romania and Hungary. They headed that way clearly– although not solely– for marriage exchanges, and their arrivals strengthened the image of the intensive mobility of the “Borovany” Lovara in the eyes of the surrounding community.94 Ithus proposed various concurrently-appearing forms of itineration accompanied by aprocess of gradual or repeated sedentarisation in the municipality. In my current research, Ihave tried to build on these previous conclusions while ascertaining whether they are also relevant for the culturally and historically different Lovara living in the south and southwest of Slovakia. My previous research forced me to include among my essential research questions the investigation of the ways in which spatial mobility is described from the actors’ perspectives, from the perspective of the Roms who themselves spent their lives or parts of their lives “on the road”. 93 It is possible to gain just arough idea of Romani numbers in “Borovany” in the pre-war period on the basis of witnesses’ fragmentary memories, complemented by genealogical maps. According to Josef Kolářik-Fintický’sFirst Republic-era photographs, the local Romani settlement at that time consisted of approximately 20–30 houses, and Iestimate there could have been 200–300 Roms there. On alist of the “gypsy” numbers from 1942 sent to the regional office in Prešov, atotal of 176 Roms was listed for this village (ŠAPrešov, bad. Nižná Šebastová, ŠZŽ– prezidiálne r. 1944, k. 2846, krab. 78, č. j. 3844/42 z8. 9. 1942– výkaz opočtu cikánů). It is highly likely that in the interwar period the number of Lovara Roms there was even higher since, as Idiscovered, some of them did not return to the village after the start of the war (for more see Hajská, “‘Polokočovníci’”). 94 Ibid., 33.
50 Approaches and policies regulating the mobility of Roms A negative phenomenon that encumbers the idea of the “travelling” past of the Roms is their “nomadisation”, in other words, the idea that all Roms share acommon “travelling” past. This notion persisted until recently and is viewed as an essential characteristic of all Romani groups without exception. Roms are often considered to be travelling people without roots who do not belong to Europe or any nation-states there because of their supposed homeland in India and their alleged characteristic of being a“people without history”.95 Even in countries where Roms have been settled for years, Roms were– indeed, still are– generally perceived as the descendants of former “nomads”.96 From the historical point of view, however, most Eastern and Central European Roms have lived settled lives since the 18th century or even earlier. This is true of today’sSlovakia, where Romani families can be shown to have lived in particular municipalities in the 17th century and maybe even earlier. Although the number of Roms without spatial ties was in fact small, they were long stigmatised because of their allegedly hard-to-govern mobility, repeatedly becoming the subject of state attempts to regulate their travelling and sedentarise them.97 As this book demonstrates below, across historical periods there are two types of policy being carried out simultaneously: Attempts by local self-governments to ensure that Roms move out of their localities as soon as possible and to prevent them from settling there, versus the state’spolicy of trying to limit or stop Romani mobility, with these policies often at odds with each other. Nevertheless, the mobility of some Romani families or whole communities should be regarded as ahistorical fact. Movement over acertain area was essential in order to carry out various professions and also involved other specific anthropological functions. For this reason, Imade 95 Hugo van Baar, “The Perpetual Mobile Machine of Forced Mobility: Europe’sRoma and the Institutionalization of Rootlessness”, The Irregularization of Migration in Contemporary Europe: Deportation, Detention, Drowning. Ed. Yolande Jansen, Joost de Bloois, and Robin Celikates, (London / New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 4. 96 Can Yıldız,Nicholas De Genova. “Un/Free mobility: Roma migrants in the European Union”. Social Identities, vol. 24, no. 4 (2017): 425–441; Hugo van Baar, “Europe’sRomaphobia: problematization, securitization, nomadization”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 29, no. 2 (2011): 203–212; van Baar, “The Perpetual Mobile Machine”; Will Guy, “Ways of looking at Roma: the case of Czechoslovakia”, Gypsies: ABook of Interdisciplinary Readings, Ed. Diane Tong (New York: Garland, 1998). 97 Tara Zahra, “Condemned to Rootlessness and Unable to Budge”: Roma, Migration Panics, and Internment in the Habsburg Empire, American Historical Review, vol. 122, no. 3 (2017): 2.
51 it my goal to ascertain in what ways some of those who had lived on the road in the past reflected on and explained their spatial mobility. These were Lovara from the area of the former Czechoslovakia, from families who had earned their living through horse trading, cleaning kettles, sharpening knives, “travelling” blacksmithery and other activities officially labelled at the time as “travelling professions”. In addition to the “nomadisation” of Roms, in various countries and at various times in history there have also been continual, restrictive measures against “nomadism” and “the travelling way of life”,98 such as various kinds of deportation, expulsion, being moved on and other forms of forced mobility, as well as arrests, raids, ethnic profiling and surveillance.99 Consistent testimonies regarding all these forms of repression are given by Lovara witnesses from the area of the former Czechoslovakia. They encountered fingerprinting and the need to register with state authorities; continual ejection and expulsion, especially during the First Republic; displacement and limitations on their mobility during the Second World War in Slovakia; constant police raids during which their movable property was taken from them (gold and silver jewellery was confiscated); and attempts to limit their mobility by seizing their means of transport (horses and carts), especially in the postwar period. Roms have been perceived by politicians and journalists in the framework of the antisocial behaviour discourse with adirect link from their alleged “nomadism” and their ethnicity to crime and antisocial behaviour.100 This is also true of the former Czechoslovakia, where there was the generally widespread idea that Roms have in their “blood” an irrepressible tendency towards itinerancy that is closely connected with asocial behaviour and poses asecurity threat.101 98 Peter Kabachnik and Andrew Ryder, “Nomadism and New Labour: constraining Gypsy and Traveller mobilities in Britain”, in: Romani mobilities in Europe: Multidisciplinary perspectives. University of Oxford: Conference Proceedings (2010): 110–125. 99 Hugo van Baar, “The Perpetual Mobile Machine”; Giovanni Picker, “Nomads’ land? Political cultures and nationalist stances vis-à-vis Roma in Italy”, in: Multi-disciplinary perspectives on Romany Studies, ed. Michael Stewart and Marton Rovid (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010): 71–86. 100 Colin Clark and Becky Taylor, “Is Nomadism the Problem? The Social Construction of Gypsies and Travellers as Perpetrators of Anti-Social Behaviour in Britain”, in: Anti-Social Behaviour in Britain: Victorian and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Sarah Pickard (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 166–178. 101 Věra Sokolová, Cultural Politics of Ethnicity: Discourses on Roma in Communist Czechoslovakia (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2020), 80.
Old postcard of Trenčianska Teplá showing villagers in traditional local costumes, before 1918.
53 Part 1: Before the creation of Czechoslovakia 1.1 Lovara on the territory of present-day Slovakia Before Istart to look at the life stories of the Stojka family, regionally connected with the area of western Slovakia, Iconsider it important to briefly examine the general situation of the Lovara on the territory of present-day Slovakia during the period in question. In the introductory chapter, Iindicated that it is highly likely that Lovara families were moving around the space of the present-day Slovakia before the mid-19th century, some of them definitely already in the 18th century, and it is not impossible that they were there even earlier.102 The area was part of Upper Hungary. Roms were allowed to move throughout the entire territory of Hungary, not just in the districts now part of present-day Slovakia. When thinking about their spatial mobility, we need to forget about the borders between the current states, which they often crossed. Nevertheless, even during this earlier period, it is possible to speak of ties between some Lovara families and certain territories. The baptism records of some families with the surname Stojka show that these families 102 Ifound these records most often in municipalities in what are today the modern-day districts of south and southwest Slovakia, such as Galanta, Levice, Pezinok, Komárno and Nové Zámky. The oldest of them come from approximately the mid-18th century, while Ifound agreater number of records from the early 19th century. For example, aregistry entry from the municipality of Ipeľský Sokolec (earlierSakáloš) in today’sLevice district shows the baptism of Barbora Stojková on 12 January 1757, born to Joannes Stojka and Clara (surname illegible: Batani). The record contains the repeated note Zingari vatanti (i.e. “Gypsy vagabonds”). Three days later in the same village there was another baptism of aRomani child, this time agirl, Theresie, to amother named Catharina Stojka. In her case, too, there is anote saying Zingari vatanti.
54 repeatedly, at intervals of several years, had their children christened in acertain municipality. Since at that time baptism took place just afew days after birth, apractice that is confirmed by the records of particular events Ihave found, that means these children were born in these specific municipalities. The repeated birth of children from one family in one locality indicates that these families were anchored in these municipalities. One example is acouple named Gorgius Stojka and Barbara Györi, who had five of their children, born between 1791 and 1801, baptised in the municipality of Kálna nad Hronom, Levice district (Andrea in 1791,103 Francisca in 1793,104 Joseph in 1795,105 Theresia in 1797106 and Georgius in 1801107). It is likely that the family spent time in the municipality, repeatedly returned to it or lived there. However, other records show that families with the surname Stojka gradually christened their children in various municipalities. These archival traces are testimony to their spatial mobility. For example, in the case of arecord from Číčov, Komárno district from 1797 referring to the son of Rebeka Stojka and Joannes Rafael being baptised with the name Carolus Florianus Rafael, there is anote after their names saying Zing.Per. (“travelling gypsies”).108 In the case of some municipalities, Imanaged to connect their registry records with other documents found in the Slovak archives to create amore comprehensive sample testifying to the continuous territorial link between aLovara family and aparticular municipality. That their generationally-remote ancestors had been present in amunicipality was in some cases also stated by Romani witnesses from that locality. An example of such amunicipality where it may be assumed that the ancestors of today’sLovara were present before the mid-19th century is Tekovské Lužany in the Levice district (the Hungarian name of the municipality, used at the time, was Nagysalló). Here, in 1791, Mária Rafael 103 Slovakia Church and Synagogue Books, 1592–1935, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch .org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNH-W76R), [cit. 18. 5. 2022]; microfilm number not given. 104 Ibid. (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNH-WF5G), [cit. 28. 6. 2022]; microfilm number not given. 105 Ibid. (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNH-W7LP), [cit. 18. 5. 2022]; microfilm number not given 106 Ibid. (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNH-4SMK), [cit. 18. 5. 2022]; microfilm number not given 107 Ibid. (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNH-W5G1), [cit. 28. 6. 2022]; microfilm number not given. 108 Ibid.(https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNH-63PN), [cit. 18. 5. 2022]; microfilm number not given.
55 (parents Josephus Rafael and Rosa Lakatos, with the note Zingari vagi.)109 was baptised. Ialso found the surname Rafael in the municipal registers with the baptism of Teresie Rafael in 1777, but with no further notes. Over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, several children with the typical Lovara surnames Rafael or Banda were also baptised here. Although there are records proving the ancestors of the present-day Lovara were present on the territory of present-day Slovakia before the years 1855–1856, in the second half of the 19th century there is asharp increase in the number of records in the register books connected with the above-mentioned surnames, which may indicate the arrival of more such families into Upper Hungary. Still, although some records indicate that these families were geographically anchored in certain municipalities, others show indirectly that the Romani families were just travelling through the municipalities in question. At this time there is also an increase in records with notes stating that these are “travelling” or indeed “Wallachian” Roms. For example, the record in the registry book for Dojč in the Senice district concerning the baptism of Martin Stojka on 9December 1856110 describes the family as “migrating”: “[This] descendant [was born] when migrating gypsies were passing through with atent.”111 Martinius Stojka was in fact born in ahouse in the abovenamed municipality– “under house no. 13”– (sub tero domus 13), so the note is clearly meant to explain that the family did not belong to the house and did not have ties to the municipality. They were being provided with shelter during the birth, but otherwise clearly slept in atent. 1.2 Lovara in the Czech lands before the creation of Czechoslovakia As on the territory of present-day Slovakia, the Lovara moved around the Czech lands before the creation of Czechoslovakia. However, for the most part these were different Lovara families who belonged to the Cisleithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and came to the Czech lands from other parts of Cisleithania. Roms belonging to the area of 109 Ibid. (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNX-37TS), [cit. 28. 6. 2022]; microfilm number not given. 110 Father Josephus Stojka, mother Catharina Lakatoš. Ibid. (https://www.familysearch.org /ark:/61903/1:1:V1HG-TG3), [cit. 28. 6. 2022]. FHL microfilm 1,479,038. 111 Latin: “Occasione transennae tormae/turmae Migrantium Zingaror in tentorio progenitus”. Ibid.
56 present-day Slovakia and other parts of what was then Hungary, which at the time was also part of Transleithania, made their way to the Czech lands only to alimited extent. The division of the monarchy into two relatively autonomous parts after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 made itself felt significantly in the two parts’ attitudes towards Roms. In Cisleithania the treatment of “gypsies” by the state and security forces at that time was underpinned legally by the decree on “the abatement of the gypsy nuisance” issued by the Cisleithanian Interior Ministry on 14 September 1888, which summed up the existing measures concerning vagrancy, begging, coercive workhouses and other measures against “gypsies”.112 The decree also allowed measures to be taken against what were called “foreign gypsies”, aterm that included “gypsies” from the other part of the monarchy. As “bothersome foreigners”, they were to be “completely prevented from entering Cisleithania” and not allowed to become domiciled there.113 The fact that this decree was still valid during the first few years of independent Czechoslovakia may well account for the conclusions of my own archival research in the Bohemian and Moravian archives, which shows that until approximately the mid-1920s, the Lovara came to the Czech lands from Slovakia only exceptionally, despite the fact that legally speaking they were no longer “foreign gypsies”, although it seems the state authorities still had atendency to view them as such. Even after the creation of the new southern Czechoslovak border with Austria, the trend continued for Lovara to come from areas belonging to the former geographical area of Cisleithania. However, let us now go back several decades to the period preceding the creation of Czechoslovakia. No historian has yet looked at the question of to what period the coming of Lovara to the Czech lands can be dated. Only from the end of the 19th century on was Iable to find sporadic records in regional archives and in digitalised sources114 testifying to the presence of individual Lovara families on this territory, and in the first decades of the 20th century such records are also few and far between. It is not impossible, however, that individual members or whole families 112 Ctibor Nečas, Romové na Moravě ave Slezsku (1740–1945) (Brno: Matice moravská, 2005), 49–50. 113 Baloun, “Metla našeho venkova”, 49. 114 These are chiefly digitalised media reports and printed materials. Registers of births, marriages and deaths in which persons living on the territory of Bohemia and Moravia during that period might be looked up by surname were not available online when this book was being written, nor did Imanage to find any such registers in the state archives in the Czech Republic.
57 from this group may have been moving around the territory of Bohemia and Moravia much earlier. One of the sources– however problematic and insufficiently objective– providing information on the presence of Lovara on the territory of the Czech lands is the digitalised media reports from the Czech lands. The periodical Národní politika devoted itself repeatedly to “hordes of vagabond gypsies” with the surname Stojka in the 1890s and their movements around astrip of land stretching from Lower Austria, including Vienna, to the territory of South Bohemia. In December 1898, Národní politika mentions the case of Anna Stojková, known as Perala, and her husband, Josef Horváth, providing ahighly exoticising description of their group: Thirteen adults and as many children formed ahorde that was headed by aswarthy, hairy chap named Jan Stojka. The wagons had barely come to ahalt when seven women left the hurriedly-pitched “camp” and set off into the town in search of plunder.’115 The family was apparently arrested several times for vagrancy, was moved on, was said to have repeatedly escaped during these incidents on the territory of what is today Austria and, among other things, was said to have committed criminal offences in the South Bohemian town of Písek, which is interesting with regard to the Lovara presence in the Czech lands.116 I managed to find more detailed information on the presence, pre-Czechoslovakia, of the Lovara in the Bohemian capital, Prague. One example is aresidency document preserved in the Prague police headquarters’ collection of residency documents (konskripce) from 1850–1914, issued to aperson named František Stojka. According to the document, Stojka was ahorse dealer who was born in 1873 in Vienna and registered in December 1913 at house no. 48 in the Prague district of Královské Vinohrady together with his wife and six children.117 It is worth noting that this address, close to the present-day Vinohrady Hospital, was not aflat as might be expected in aresidential area, but afarmstead with the name Horní Stromka. Established in the 18th century on the foundations of ayard from the 16th century, by the 19th century its buildings housed asugar refinery and classic agricultural facilities such as cowsheds, barns and storehouses, which were said to be already falling into disrepair at 115 [author n.a.] “Pro loupežnou vraždu.“ Moravská orlice, vol. 36, no. 287 (18. 12. 1898), 5. 116 Ibid. 117 NA, f. Policejní ředitelství I, konskripce, b. 566, image 223.
64 pared to other Roms, he enjoyed aspecial status in the eyes of local nonRoms. Although Icannot today define his social status precisely from the viewpoint of the Romani community, the records made by the local administration over the course of several decades reflect his higher social status compared to other Roms from the viewpoint of the non-Romani community. From various records it can be seen that he was relatively well off, and that as such he was, to acertain extent, respected by the local non-Romani authorities who later, during the Second World War, nominated him for the position of vajda (chief), atitle by which he was referred to by both Roms and Neroms in the following decades. In the records connected with him there is never any doubt cast on the fact that he is domiciled in Trenčianska Teplá. While in the case of some Roms the registers state in the column for employment things such as “vagabond” or “gypsy vagabond”, Štefan is always listed as ahorse dealer or merchant. As Ishall show in detail in the following chapters, it was also he who later, in the 1930s, was the first and only Rom to buy ahouse in the municipality. Štefan’sfamily life is also interesting. He became afather at the young age of 14, in 1905, when his first-born son Ján Stojka was born. Ján later continued in the family business of horse trading. Like his father, at 14 Ján Stojka also had ason, who received the name Štefan. Štefan Stojka, Senior thus became agrandfather at the age of 28. He then had at least five more children with several partners in succession (he seems to have been twice widowed). His youngest son, who like his first-born son was named Ján, was born in 1953 and was thus two generations younger than his half-brother of the same name. Ishall deal with these facts in even greater detail later. During the first two decades of the 20th century there are relatively few records on Štefan Stojka, Sr. The mother of his first-born Ján is recorded in some places as Mária, elsewhere as Agnes Stojka (the name of the father is always the same). The mother of Iboja, born in 1919, was Karolína, née Lakatošová. She was born in 1902 and was thus just three years older than Štefan’sson Ján. It is not clear whether Štefan split up from his first wife or if he was widowed. It is possible that had more children during the time in question who do not figure in the records of the local notary’soffice. His children mentioned above were born in Trenčianska Teplá and were domiciled there. To what extent Štefan’sfamily lived in the municipality on amore permanent or regular basis is not clear. Ido not even know the place where
65 the family may have dwelt or spent the winters. However, it is clear that during this period they at least used to return there on aregular basis. Zaga Stojková (* 1887) Ialso have fairly detailed information from this period on Štefan Stojka Sr.’solder sister, named Zaga Stojková. Although she was born into the Lovara Stojka family, domiciled in Trenčianska Teplá, according to all the records she lived together with aman called Ján Facona,133 with whom she had at least six children. However, she never married him and thus kept her maiden name of Stojková all her life. Judging by his surname, birthplace and residency, Ján Facona was anon-Vlax Rom (Rumungro, or Slovak Rom) from the village of Dobrá near Trenčianska Teplá, about akilometre away.134 ARomani family with the surname Facona had been established for generations there,135 earning aliving as day labourers.136 From the records of the district notary’soffice in Trenčianska Teplá it can be seen that at alater period, the Faconas of Dobrá earned their living by trading untanned hides, for which they had atrade licence.137 In the 1930s, the Facona family lived permanently on the edge of Dobrá in aRomani settlement “in gypsy huts”138 (see Fig. 2). It may be assumed that they lived similarly during the preceding period. From the Lovara perspective, the fact that Zaga lived with aRumungro may have influenced her lower status including in the eyes of her brother Štefan Stojka 133 There is an interesting, gradual switch in the documents from the name Facona to Fatona, which is also aname that some of Zaga’schildren used to identify themselves– such as in Súpis Cigánov (the Gypsy Register) from 1942 compiled by the ONÚ (ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenčianska Teplá, Evidencia cigáňov 1942, ev. č. 99, k. 23, no č. j.). 134 Dobrá was only officially part of Trenčianska Teplá from 1971. Until then it was aseparate municipality, although situated nearby. Ihave not managed to find the birthdate of Ján Facona. 135 In the baptism books we find several birth records for children with the surname Facona from the second half of the 19th century where it is stated that they were “Gypsies” (Zingara) living in Dobrá. For example, for the child of Josef Facona, born in 1865, the address is given as Dobrá 26, but in other records only as “Dobrá”, with no house number. Slovakia Church and Synagogue Books, 1592–1935,FamilySearch(https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V1C3RQ1), [cit. 18. 5. 2022]; FHL microfilm 2,428,023. 136 See ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenčianska Teplá, Evidencia obchodníkov a remeselníkov 1901–1913, kn. 52, f. 167. According to the records from the 1930s onwards the Faconas from Dobrá earned their living by trading raw hides. 137 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenčianska Teplá, Administratíva, k. 30, Evidencia obchodníkov aremeselníkov vobciach notárstva Trenčianska Teplá 1927–1942. 138 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenčianska Teplá, Sčítanie ľudu zroku 1930, ev. č. 6009/30. There are four families listed with the surname Facona.
66 Sr. and his nuclear family. Ibase this statement on my long-term research into the environment of the Lovara in the Czech lands and Slovakia, during which they have declared repeatedly and clearly that intra-ethnic marriages with non-Vlax Roms were essentially inadmissible for them.139 The same findings have been made by other researchers.140 Marriage with aRumungro brought “great shame” to the family in question and could lead to the ultimate punishment, exclusion from the community.141 Zaga seems to have lived for the first two decades of the 20th century with her partner, Ján Facona, in the small village of Dobrá near Trenčianska Teplá. It is here that their children appear to have been born, and it is here that official records of the time have them and their children down as domiciled. Here, however, it is necessary to point out that the official records regarding aperson with the name of Zaga Stojková gave her domicile alternately as Trenčianska Teplá and Dobrá. Dobrá was even given as Zaga’sbirthplace in some records, although in others her place of birth was given as Trenčianska Teplá. It is, however, certain that her partner, Ján Facona, was born in Dobrá and that their three eldest children were also born here: Filo (*1907), Minka (*1911) and Barbora (*1914). According to some records142 their daughter Kuluš was also born here (*1920). Other records locate the birth of Kuluš in Trenčianska Teplá,143 where her younger siblings were apparently also born (Grófa, seemingly in 1923, and the youngest, Josef, in 1924). Ihave not managed to find any records testifying to the spatial mobility of Zaga’snuclear family from this period. It is therefore unclear how the family earned aliving during this period, whether its income came entirely from Ján Facona’slabour, or whether Zaga too had ashare in ensuring their income. 139 E.g., Hajská, “Hranice jazyka”, 205. 140 Marušiakova, “Rodinný život valašských”, Stojka and Pivoň, Náš život. Amaro trajo. 141 Personal recording of J. B. (*1934) by the author, made on 12 August 2020 in České Budějovice. 142 For example, ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia trestaných občianov obce Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1949. 143 Data given e.g. in the register for February 1959, kept in the SOkA Louny: ONV II Louny, vnitř. 608, k. 332.
Teplická street in Trenčianska Teplá with the single-track pleasure railway. At the end of the street on the left, underneath the stone quarry that can be seen in the background, is where Štefan Stojka had a house built in the interwar period.
71 Part 2: The Interwar Period 2.1 Lovara territorial anchoring and spatial mobility in Slovakia Lovara living on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia are often described as “traditionally travelling” people who were not “settled” until the year 1959.144 The image of Lovara as “nomads” who were not territorially anchored in any way is abundantly reinforced by various media stories. However, this concept is reductionist and imprecise. In this chapter, which focuses on the Stojka family situation in the interwar period, Iwill continue my search for an answer to the question of the extent to which it is possible to speak of the Lovara living in Slovakia during this period as an example of territorial anchoring at odds with the above-described stereotypical image of them as “travelling”. At this juncture Iwill turn to the situation of the various Romani families living in the south and the west of Slovakia. Iwill put forward several case studies concerning various Lovara family histories, people who were territorially connected with specific municipalities or with acertain historical region. Detailed records from the individual municipalities allow us to better investigate the degree and form of territorial anchoring of various Lovara families. Using selected examples, Iwill try to show the various types of their spatial mobility and point to the need to work in amore nuanced way with the idea of the place to which they belonged. The debate that follows in this chapter will further develop the 144 E.g., Davidová, Cesty Romů, 96; Nina Pavelčíková, Romové včeských zemích 1945–1989. Praha: Úřad dokumentace avyšetřování zločinů komunismu, 2004.
72 facts stated above regarding spatial movement and territorial anchoring in the earlier period. Spatial mobility from the perspective of the actors People often think that all Vlax Roms used to be travelling. But that’snot the case. Even before the war anybody who could, acquired ahouse. After the war, the only people who were still travelling were the poor people trying to get away from the police who didn’t want them anywhere.145 This testimony of Viktor Salinas, aLovara witness born in Dolná Seč, Levice district, contains the witness’ssubjective opinion that the Lovara who were still “travelling” on the territory of the south and southwest of Slovakia during the interwar period were by then aminority. This statement, which is fully at odds with the ideas of historians and Romani studies scholars regarding the itinerancy of this group during the period in question, forced me to focus on investigating the hypothesis that the Lovara during this period were territorially anchored in certain municipalities. Salinas’sstatement may be affected by the fact that he himself came from acommunity in which Roms had built dwellings on the edge of the municipality even before Czechoslovakia declared independence. The situation was similar in other municipalities in Levice district, where anumber of Lovara families had created more permanent ties to the region during that time. However, things may have been different in other regions of Slovakia. In this chapter Ishall work with the perspective of Lovara families or communities as captured in the testimonies of witnesses who were small children at the time or who were descendants of these families and shared anarrative regarding “travelling” that had been created in the families and handed down through the generations. Over the course of more than 20 years (2001–2023) Irecorded, for various purposes, biographical interviews touching in various ways on the spatial mobility and territorial ties of my respondents’ families. As acomplement to this, Iwill once again make use of state records kept in the Slovak archives, which contain various registers from the municipalities in which Lovara families were domiciled. 145 Personal recording of Viktor Salinas (*1941) by the author, made on 7 August 2016 in Postoloprty, Czech Republic.
73 The forms and functions of their mobility differed from family to family, as did their spatial trajectories and the intensity of their life “on the road”. These families have various kinds of territorial ties. Their livelihood strategies differed from family to family, which is something Iwill review at the end of this section. The social status of each family and the wealth that was generated which allowed some Lovara horizontal mobility in the conditions of the Slovak countryside were both related to the variables of their livelihood strategies, mobility and territorial ties. Ishall present below examples of municipalities in which the territorial anchoring of Lovara families took place to acertain degree. In the second part of this section, Iwill look at the Stojka family, with its territorial anchoring in Trenčianska Teplá, building on the findings Ihave formulated generally on the situation of the Lovara during the period in question. Domicile Movement and dwelling is not aconstant expression of culture, but is enabled and influenced by non-Romani jurisdiction and territorial divisions.146 These factors have asignificant influence on the limits of and opportunities for Romani mobility. One of the key things to substantiate when tracing the territorial ties of Romani families is where they were domiciled. This was an official relationship, but its actual substance varied from case to case. The right of domicile (or place of domicile) was understood at that time as alegal relationship between an individual and aparticular municipality. It did not require actual presence in the municipality in which the person in question was domiciled.147 The acquisition of domicile was governed by Act no. XVIII of 1871, “on municipalities”, by paragraph 6 of Hungarian legal article V/1876, by legal article L/1879, and definitively by Act no. XXII of 1886, “on municipalities”. Domicile could be gained automatically through birth, and in the case of women, through marriage, by being accepted into the municipality, by settling there (in the Hungarian part, astay of three months at least was 146 Leonardo Piasere, “Les slovensko roma: entre sédentarité et nomadisme”.Nomadic Peoples, vol. 21/22 (December 1986): 37–50. 147 Anna Jurová, “Domovské právo vo vzťahu kRómom vpredmníchovskej ČSR”, in: Historický vývoj súkromého práva vEurópe: zborník príspevkov zmedzinárodnej vedeckej konferencie konanej vdňoch 27.–28. mája 2011 na Právnickej fakulte UPJŠ vKošiciach, ed. Erik Štenpien (Košice: Právnická fakulta UPJŠ, 2011), 121–144.
80 was Ďuri. On the basis of an analysis of documents from the Dolná Seč notary’soffice in the Levice branch of the state archives in Nitra, Ifound that Karoly Lakatoš was born in 1854 and really did live for most of his life in Dolná Seč.160 He still lived there during the Second World War, dying shortly after it ended. He was the father of more than 10 children over three decades, from the 1880s to the 1910s. Many of his children were born in Dolná Seč and some of them lived there as adults as well.161 According to Salinas, before the Second War these Roms lived for many years in houses on the site of the current Romani settlement. This is confirmed by my archival findings. According to the 1930 census, among the permanent inhabitants of the village were the family of Ján Rafael (*1887), ahorse dealer and owner of house no. 130, his spouse Mária Rafaelová (*1890) and afurther seven family members. One of them had next to his name the note: agricultural labourer.162 Another house, with no number and described in anote as alean-to shed, was permanently inhabited by Rudolf Rafael (*1892), who had two occupations: horse dealer and agricultural labourer. He lived there with his partner Mária (*1897) and their seven children.163 In the collections of the police chief’s office164 in Levice from 1938–1944165 there is arecord relating to adispute over domicile in the municipality concerning János Lakatoš (Romani nickname Rudi)166 stating that he lived in aRomani settlement (in Hungarian, cigánytelep) in Dolná Seč,167 which is also confirmed in other documents by non-Romani witnesses who knew him and his father well.168 Nine of Rudi’schildren 160 ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. ONÚ Dolná Seč. 161 For example, Jozef Banda (Joško), Ján Rafael and Salinas’ grandfather Karoly Lakatos (Čuri), officially also registered as János Lakatos, born in 1895 ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. ONÚ Dolná Seč– Trestné listy 1908–1938 and ŠA Levice, f. Hlavnoslúžnovský úrad vLevicích, spis. zn. 2777/1943. 162 Slovenský národný archív, Sčítání lidu 1930, obec Dolná Seč, č. hárku 001, č. škatule 0444, identifikátor urn:nbn:sk:cair-ko1b478, availible: https://slovakiana.sk/scitacie-harky. 163 Ibid., č. hárku 002, č. škatule 0444, identifikátor urn:nbn:sk:cair-ko1b47b. 164 The office was created on the basis of the district office after Levice (Léva) was occupied by Hungarian troops on 10 November 1938 and functioned until 20 December1944, when the Red Army liberated the town of Levice (Léva). Source: ŠA in Nitra, Archív Levice, f. Hlavnoslúžnovský úrad vLeviciach, available online: Főszolgabíroi hivatal Léva [cit. 14. 7. 2023]. 165 ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. Hlavnoslúžnovský úrad vLeviciach, 1938–1944, spis. zn. 2777/1943. 166 This was the brother of Salinas’ grandfather Čuri (Károly/ János Lakatoš), son of Károl Lakatoš (Ďuri), born 1854. János Lakatoš (Rudi), born 1884 in Žemliary, states that his father is still living in Dolná Seč and that he is 85. 167 ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. Hlavnoslúžnovský úrad vLevicích zlet 1938–1944, spis. zn. 2777/1943, unmarked document entitled Nyilatkozat (declaration) of 23. 12. 1942. 168 Ibid.
81 were born in the 1920s and 1930s in Dolná Seč,169 where the family appears to have lived and which served as the base for its economic activities in the surrounding area. In the criminal records from the Dolná Seč authorities concerning the period 1908 to 1938, which contains records of several dozen people from Dolná Seč, it is possible to identify around 18 people who, on the basis of surnames and other notes (e.g. occupation: “gypsy”) may be presumed to be Lovara. Fifteen of them listed Dolná Seč as their place of birth (from 1884 to 1924), 13 had it as their domicile, and 10 listed it as their current place of residence. In two cases, different places of residence were noted for their repeated appearances in the register, or there was anote stating “residence unstable”, while with the other eight, their place of permanent residence was always listed as Dolná Seč. In the occupation column, most of them had “gypsy vagabond”, while three even had their profession described as “Vlax gypsy”. Three men and one woman have “labourer” listed as their employment, while another has “agricultural worker”170, which again indicates that Roms had permanent residence in the municipality in the prewar period. The last-mentioned performed activities locally. From the testimonies of witnesses and other records it is clear that the Lovara community there was relatively large. The information on the domiciles, occupations and residences of the above-mentioned 18 people captured in this specific police source therefore illustrates the means and the frequency of the local Romani anchoredness there, both on the official level and in terms of the time they actually spent in Dolná Seč, insofar as such sources can provide us with this kind of information. Another municipality where, according to witnesses and archival records, Lovara lived in their own houses in the interwar period was Tekovské Lužany, also in the Levice district. According to witness Josef Molnár (*1945),171 Lovara had lived in their own houses, which stood in the Romani settlement, long before the Second World War. Josef Molnár said: Idon’t know when the Roms built their houses there, but it was along time ago. My grandfather had ahouse and astable next door. That was where my grandmother lived, my father’smother. They had houses, but they weren’t 169 Ibid., document withcase no. 1121/1941, of3. 12. 1941, p. 3. 170 This is the above-mentioned great-grandfather of Viktor Salinas, Károl Lakatoš (Ďuri), born in 1854. Ibid. 171 Personal recording of Josef Molnár (1945) by the author, made on 19 January 2019 in Hořice, Czech Republic.
82 well off, they slept on straw. They didn’t have furniture or anything. During that time they traded horses and went round the markets. My grandfather was the vajda back then. If awoman went past his house without ascarf, she had to pay afine, otherwise he himself would personally shave her head.172 This mention of Romani women going past his grandfather’shouse, astory handed down in the family, may be considered “tangible” proof of the actual residency of Lovara in Tekovské Lužany. This is also confirmed by (sporadic) archival finds. In the file of the police chief’soffice in Levice for 1938–1944 the case is recorded in detail of Simon Rafael, born in 1892 in Tekovské Lužany and domiciled there, who from 1939 to 1941 sent protests to various authorities that his horses had been taken away from him. Rafael repeatedly called for their return, arguing that he was adisabled veteran of the First World War, that he needed his horses for transport and that he had ahouse in Tekovské Lužany, where he had also had astable built for his horses. All this information was confirmed as true by the War Committee in adocument issued to the district War Board in Levice in 1939.173 The house as wintering place: A combination of spatial mobility and territorial anchoredness Aslightly different example of house ownership is the large family with the surname Stojka who owned ahouse at number 11 Práznovská Street in Topoľčany, according to official records and the testimonies of witnesses. Although the witness statements do not indicate when precisely the family acquired the house, several descendants of the family independently corroborated each others’ claims that it was definitely before the war. The head of the household and my respondents’ grandfather, named Michal Stojka (* in 1863, according to archival records), had several children, and they and their families used the house on aseasonal basis. His grandson, Štefan Stojka (*1932) said: 172 Ibid. Molnár was describing atraditional way of punishing Lovara women for breaking the rules of ritual purity and for acts considered as shameful. Such behaviour was formerly deemed to include the non-wearing of headscarves by Lovara women. 173 ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. Hlavnoslúžnovský úrad vLevicích zlet 1938–1944, file no. 6318/1942. Also in afile entitled Alevai járási hadigo ndozo bizottságátol, č. j. 6/1939. Tärgy: Rafael Simon nagysallói.
83 We had this huge house, the whole Romani family lived there. Some people were still travelling, they mostly traded horses. We had ahouse. My parents settled down and tried to live acivilised life. They bought the house with the money from ahorse, but even though we had ahouse, we still travelled in the summer. It was not like [how we had travelled] before– summer, winter, all year round. Not us, not any more. We only went travelling in summer, in the winter we went home. My father Jozef lived there with my mother Helena. They had 13 children. My uncle Ondrej Stojka lived with them too.174 This testimony contains various generally-held judgments, stated in amatter-of-fact way, in which the witness distances himself in acertain way from travelling, although he himself experienced it. The connection between being a“travelling” person and an “uncivilised” one reflects the discourse he faced as a“travelling gypsy” in the postwar period with the need to register as such under Act no. 74/1958, adiscourse he must have come across in his life repeatedly. He also points to the higher social status of his family, which acquired its own house at atime when other (Vlax) Roms were still “travelling”, expressing distance from those who did not buy ahome. An interesting detail is that the house is said to have been bought with money from selling horses. This again shows that horse trading could be away of easily earning money, which other Roms managed to earn with great difficulty in those days, although the idea that the sale of one horse would enable the purchase of ahouse is clearly an exaggeration. Nevertheless, this information is valuable, especially if we compare it with the fairly limited, almost negligible possibility for Slovak (non-Vlax) Roms, who during this period were frequently limited to receiving payment in kind, to buy ahouse. Vain attempts by Roms to acquire houses are often described as the result of non-Romani unwillingness to let Roms live “amongst them”. The territorial and also the social boundary between Roms and non-Roms tends to be described as impermeable. Although we do not know the details of the sale described or similar transactions, it is likely that financial wealth was, under certain circumstances, able to break through this boundary. The narrator’s brother František Stojka (*1940), when asked whether his family had travelled before the war, replied: “It wasn’t quite like that. They all went to the fairs, but even before the war they had houses and they’d trade. So even though we travelled, we still had houses to which 174 Personal recording of Štefan Stojka (*1932) by the author, made on 22 March 2002 in Ostrava. Czech Republic.
84 we returned.”175 The testimony of František Stojka shows the already-outlined combination of spatial mobility and territorial anchoredness, in other words, the fact that owning ahouse did not rule out “travelling” carried out for the purpose of horse trading. Acousin of both men (Štefan, *1940) confirmed what František Stojka said and enlarged upon the idea of the house as apoint to which the family would return: “We travelled when Iwas little. We travelled, but at the same time we had ahouse. It was like our base from which we’d set out and to which we used to return. My dad dealt in horses.”176 The cousin of these three witnesses, Mrs. G .S. (*1939), also the granddaughter of Michal Stojka, said: “The family home in Topoľčany was where my grandfather lived, Mr. Stojka. The family travelled throughout Slovakia, but they’d always go back to my grandfather’shouse after atime, mostly for the period from autumn to spring.”177 From her description it can be seen that the house may have been used by (at least some) families as awintering place, in other words, ahouse to which the family returned for the winter period, described by witnesses as aperiod very unsuited to moving around with wagons. The generation of my respondents’ fathers, Michal Stojka’ssons, were all born in Topoľčany (Josef in 1884, Pavol in 1887, Ladislav in 1888, Ondrej in 1898, Anton in 1903). According to the registry records, their father was born there in 1863178 and still lived there during the Second World War. Topoľčany was also listed as the birthplace for the vast majority of Michal’sgrandchildren, born in the interwar period. The registry of gypsy identity documents held by the Topoľčany district authorities179 confirms that Michal and all his sons earned their living as horse traders during the second half of the 1920s and the entire 1930s. For five sons in one family to become horse traders is relatively rare. As they were all engaged in the same profession, the brothers and their father would have had to compete against each other. Such asituation was possible if they branched out and widened their territories to include various districts of 175 Personal recording of František Stojka (*1940) by the author, made on 29 March 2002 inOstrava, Czech Republic. 176 Personal recording of Štefan Stojka (*1940) by the author, made on 16 April 2002 in Ostrava, Czech Republic. 177 VÚA-VHA Praha, f. Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelů o vydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb. 178 Parents’ names František Stojka and Terezia Lakatošová. Note in register: Zingarus Valachicus. Slovakia Church and Synagogue Books, 1592–1935, FamilySearch(https://www.familysearch .org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNX-4T3D)), [cit. 18. 6. 2023]; microfilm number not given. 179 ŠA Nitra/ Topoľčany, f. OÚ Topoľčany, k. 25a– kn. Evidencia cigánskych legitimácií.
85 the former Czechoslovakia, with aclear orientation towards the Czech lands, in the 1930s. The fact that all the sons managed to maintain their profession points to the family’shigh social status, which is also indicated by witnesses and described in the press of the period.180 They all regularly returned to Topoľčany and some family members stayed there regularly. They were all domiciled there. The official records also repeatedly mention the address of “11 Práznovská” in Topoľčany during the Second World War.181 All the family members who were registered there had to return there after the ban on itinerancy and live there together. According to the official register, in 1942 atotal of 44 people lived at that address,182 including women and children. Afurther record from the same year even adds afurther seven adults.183 The question arises of how large this house had to be if, according to witnesses, it was used during normal times by various branches of the extended family just as awintering place or temporary staging post and managed to hold more than 50 people in 1942. It is not impossible, however, that some family members may have lived in their wagons on land attached to the house. This underlines my conclusions that spatial mobility and anchoredness could be combined and could complement each other. Within asingle family, for example, the less well-off members might camp on land belonging to aricher relative. Ishall show asimilar model when it comes to the situation during the war in Trenčianska Teplá. 180 In the periodical Neues Tagblatt für Schlesien und Nordmähren an article was published on page 6 of the 2 June 1937 edition entitled “Unsuccessful election of gypsy king in Opava”, describing the election of anew gypsy king to replace the deceased king of Polish origin, Michal Kwiek. One candidate for the post was Anton Stojka, ason of Michal Stojka from Topoľčany. The article states that: “Stojka is arespected man. He is the leader of the Topoľčany district and has 2,000 Slovak gypsy families subject to him. From his position he is authorised to pass judgments, and he has to defend the interests of his clan. He is helped in his dealings by an assistant whom he has at his disposal.” According to the description, Anton Stojka was aRomani judge who took part in Romani court cases. ([autor] -fchil. “Mißglückte Zigeuner Kö nigswahl in Troppau.” Neues Tagblatt für Schlesien und Nordmähren, vol. 4, no. 128 (2. 6. 1937), 6.). 181 According to the testimonies of all the above-cited witnesses, the house was destroyed during the war by German soldiers. 182 ŠA Nitra/ Topoľčany, f. OÚ Topoľčany, Žandárská stanica Topoľčany, ref. 4408/42– Odvod asociálních osôb– príprava (10. 9. 1942, part of the appendix Seznam asociálnych živlov acigáňov. 183 Ibid., ref. 15.607/1942. Dodatočný odvod osob zasociálneho živlu pre pracovný útvar vDubnici nad Váhom.
86 Roms also owned houses in neighbouring municipalities. The narrative of Helena Danišová (*1940) shows that her family owned ahouse in the municipality of Soľčany: Iwas born in the municipality of Soľčany in the Topoľčany district. We had ahouse there. The whole of my mother’sfamily lived there, her parents, brother, sisters. Just Vlax Roms, there were no Rumungros there. Our settlement was at the very beginning of the village. Before the war we didn’t travel and we didn’t even have horses. That was after the war.184 The address of their house, number 245 Soľčany, was listed next to their parents’ names in the official registry during the war.185 The witness’semphasis on the position of the Romani settlement points to afurther important aspect that needs to be taken into account when studying the territorial links between Romani families and acertain municipality, and that is the spatial location of their settlement or houses within the municipality. Alocation “at the beginning of the village” or in the centre of the village for the most part testified to the good or acceptable situation of Roms in the municipality. Important information, such as whether someone bought the house, built it himself, or had it built is not always available, but can sometimes be found in witness narratives– as was the case above with the testimonies of Roms originally from Topoľčany. Another place where the Lovara lived in houses in the interwar period was nearby Chynorany, Topoľčany district. According to aregister of the “gypsies” living in the municipality in 1924, 29 Roms lived there, of whom 16 can be identified by their surnames as being Lovara. The head of the Lovara family was Ján Lakatoš, “horse merchant”, born in 1871 in Chynorany and living with his wife Erža, born in 1870 also in Chynorany, and their eight children and six “unlawful children”. They all had the right of domicile in Chynorany.186 According to the witness M. S. (*1945), granddaughter of Ján Lakatoš and Erža Lakatošová, the Roms had their own houses in the municipality even before the war.187 This is 184 Personal recording of Helena Danišová (*1940) by the author, made on 29 March 2002 in Ostrava, Czech Republic. 185 ŠA Nitra/ Topoľčany, f. OÚ Topoľčany, ref. 15.607/1942. Dodatočný odvod osob zasociálneho živlu pre pracovný útvar vDubnici nad Váhom. 186 ŠA Nitra/ Topoľčany, f. ONÚ Chynorany, šk. 9, zn. 1924. Zoznam cigánov nachodiacich sa vobci Chynorany. 187 VÚA-VHA Praha. Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelůovydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb., personal file of applicant M. S. (*1945).
87 confirmed by areport issued by the notary in Topoľčany in August 1939 concerning the revision of domicile for “all gypsies”, according to which the M. S.’sfather, born in Chynorany in 1912 and also domiciled there, was an inhabitant of house no. 326 and was employed as a“labourer”.188 The territorial mobility outlined in the case of the Topoľčany Stojkas can also be observed in other places where Roms spent the winter. However, such mobility could take various forms. Atypical example of aplace to which the Lovara regularly returned is described by witness J. P. (*1939) from the municipality of Madunice, Trnava district: We lived in Madunice in aRomani settlement about 300 metres from the village, about six families of us. We would just spend the winter in Madunice, we were registered as resident there, and we had alittle house there. Summer was the time for travelling and horse-dealing.189 Adifferent type of wintering place was the site in Hrnčiarovce, Trnava district, clearly connected with the relatively less intensive presence of Romani families in that municipality. Witness M. B. (*1932) wrote in her statement: “Hrnčiarovce was where we spent the winter. We were among the travelling Roms. My family earned its living from sharpening knives and scissors. We would travel to places where there was ademand for that service.”190 From what she goes on to describe, however, it was not apermanent building, but “aplace by the river where we set up our wagons and that’swhere we lived”.191 Asimilar experience is confirmed by another witness from the same locality, I. L. (*1942), who says that before the war her family lived in wagons: “We travelled, just before the war we lived in wagons on asite by the village of Hrnčiarovce in Trnava district. We were one big family, five brothers, 20 wagons, maybe 200 to 300 people.”192 Many of their family members were domiciled in Hrnčiarov ce, which was why they had to return there at the start of the war. 188 Report for OÚ Topoľčany, submitted 30 August 1939 with ref. 5922. Kept as part of the documentation/personal file of the applicant in VÚA-VHA Praha. Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelůovydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb., personal file of applicant M. S. (*1945). 189 J. P., (*1939) recorded 18 September 2002 in Holešov by Jana Kramářová, Archives of Člověk vtisni, o.p.s. 190 VÚA-VHA Praha. Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelůovydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb., personal file of applicant M. B. (*1932). 191 M. B., female (*1932) recorded 4 June 2001 in Prague, Czech Republic by Jakub Krčík. Archive of Člověk vtisni, o.p.s. 192 I. L., female (*1942) in Hrnčiarovce, Trnava district, Slovakia, recorded by Milena Alinčová in Sadská on 11 September 2002. Archive of Člověk vtisni, o.p.s.
88 The territorial bond with a particular municipality could take all kinds of forms. The list of Lovara who, according to official evidence and testimonies, were anchored in aparticular municipality in Slovakia does not, of course, end with these few cases. It is definitely worth mentioning the municipality of Voderady in the Trnava district where, according to the official register of “gypsies” from 1932, there were 31 Lovara193 with the surname Rafael, Stojka or Horvát. With the exception of partners who had married into the family, all of the Roms on the list were born in Voderady (between 1896 and 1928). All adults, with the exception of afew housewives, listed their occupations as “worker” (robotník). That they were actually resident in the municipality was confirmed by the notary’soffice in 1933 and 1934, while in 1936 another 10 people with the surname Rafael were added to the list.194 The fact that all the adult Lovara apparently earned their livelihoods as “workers” contradicts the generally-received idea that Roms from this sub-ethnic group traditionally avoid physical labour.195 That this was astereotype is confirmed by the above-mentioned examples showing Roms as brickmakers, metalsmiths, agricultural workers, day labourers and other manual labour professions. The horse-trading families did not perform physical work and ranked highest among the Lovara in terms of status and material wealth, and it is this aspect that differentiated them from families with alower social status. However, not every horse trader managed to earn aliving selling horses, and some less successful ones turned to complementary livelihoods. Aresident of Dolný Hričov, Žilina district196, witness V. S. (*1939), describes afamily of Lovara homeowners there before the Second World War, as does witness M. L. (born 1940) from the municipality of Veľké Lovce, Šurany district197 and witness J. B. (*1934) from the municipality of Mýtne Ludany, Levice district, where he says his family owned ahouse 193 For more on the Romani settlement in Voderady in the early 1960s and the local Lovara community, see Kutlík– Garudo 1999: 18. 194 ŠA Nitra/ Trnava, ObNÚ Voderady, kn. 27– Evidencia cigáňov 195 Nina Pavelčíková. “Vztah Romů kpráci– konfrontace stereotypů shistorickými doklady”. Český lid 102, no. 3 (2015): 308. 196 VÚA-VHA Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelůovydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb., personal file of applicant V. S. (*1939). 197 “Before the war we lived in asettlement near the municipality of Veľké Lovce, about 500 metres from the village. We had alittle house made of unfired bricks, one room.” (Ibid). Roms settling in Veľké Lovce after the First World War are also described by witness Peter Lakatoš, whose grandfather, ablacksmith, settled there together with his sons. Personal recording with Peter Lakatoš (*1956) by the author, made on 30 March 2018 inTvrdošovce, Slovakia.
89 “right in the village, among the gadjos [non-Roma]”.198 Another official record from the Chief of Police’soffice describes three wooden houses belonging to Roms with the surname Rafael and Banda in Marušová, Levice district being burnt down in 1938 and the subsequent expulsion of these Roms from the village. The Roms were said to have lived permanently in the houses until that time.199 Of course, the question remains open as to what the houses the Lovara owned at that time looked like. Ibelieve we should envisage them as being similar to the houses that the so-called Slovak Roms owned and lived in at that time in Slovakia. It cannot be excluded that some of them were wooden buildings and dwellings of an improvised nature, sometimes referred to pejoratively by the authorities as “gypsy shacks” and by the witnesses themselves as “huts”. If the house was made of brick or stone, that fact was duly stressed by the witnesses. It should be noticed, however, that some houses owned by Lovara had officially-issued and registered house numbers, which were not usually allotted to non-standard buildings (shacks, hovels etc.). Ahouse number indicates that the dwelling-place was of apermanent nature and its owner’sfinancial situation reasonably secure. In some places, however, the relevant building and registration laws and decrees may have been circumvented, and so these cases of dwelling-places must be judged individually. Influence of livelihood on spatial mobility The profession in which aparticular family was engaged had afundamental influence on the form of its spatial mobility. It was often also one of the main reasons why families either moved territorially or remained in acertain place. In the register of Roms undertaken in 1925 in the Slovak regions, atotal of 60,315 “settled” Roms and 1,877 “travelling” Roms were listed. These were understood by Nečas to be Vlax Roms.200 He said the above-mentioned register contained information on 63 horse dealers, 198 VÚA-VHA Praha, f. Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelů o vydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb., personal file of applicant J. B. (*1934). 199 The houses were said to have been destroyed by local residents who wanted to drive the Roms out of the village by so doing. ŠA Nitra/ Levice, f. Hlavnoslúžnovsky úrad vLevicích zlet 1938–1944, složka 5744/1944, č. j. 3004/42– Ráfael Antal és János továbbá Banda Miklos cigányok tartózkodása of 20. November 1942. 200 Ctibor Nečas, “Slovenští Romové vletech 1938–1945”. Sborník prací Filosofické fakulty brněnské univerzity C 51 (Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2004).
96 Dobrá. As Ihave mentioned above, this municipality immediately neighbouring Trenčianska Teplá had already been settled for generations by afamily of Slovak (non-Vlax) Roms with the surname Facona. This is also where Zaga and Ján’sthree eldest children were born. We may speculate whether Zaga and her children lived together with her partner Ján Facona’sparents in one of the three houses that the authorities labelled “gypsy shacks” (see Fig. 2), or whether she resided in the municipality in adifferent way. There are no documents from the beginning of the 1920s showing the spatial mobility of Zaga’sfamily. Zaga’spartner Ján Facona is aslightly unclear figure about whom there are only fragmentary official records, which end in the mid-1920s with the birth of their youngest children, Grófa (*1923) and Josef, nicknamed Jouško (*1924). After they were born, Zaga Stojková does not seem to have had any more children, probably because when her youngest son was born she was already 37. How old Ján Facona was when Josef was born is not known from official records, since Ihave not been able to find Ján’sdate of birth anywhere. From the mid-1920s, the name of Ján Facona no longer occurs in connection with Zaga Stojková’sfamily, and so Imay surmise that he was no longer living with Zaga and their children. It is not impossible that by this time he had already died. Ihave not been able to find any detailed information regarding his death. In the 1920s, Zaga’seldest son Filo (*1907) starts to become anotable figure. In official records from the First Republic era he is labelled a“horse trader”, revealing that this branch of the family was in that business. At the beginning of the 1920s, Filo took awife, Anna Lakatošová, whose Romani nickname was Čaja and who was born in Veľké Ostratice in the district called Partizánske today. In subsequent years, their family seems to have gradually become more oriented towards the neighbouring, considerably larger municipality of Trenčianska Teplá. This is where Anna’sdaughter Grófa was born, seemingly in the spring of 1923, followed in 1924 by ason, grandson of Zaga, named Vilém Stojka, with the Romani nickname Janino. Next to the record of his birth in the register there is anote stating “born in atent below Dubovec”221, indicating that the family was at that time camping or living in atent beneath the hill called Dubovec at the edge of the village. Filo Stojka was 17 when his son was born, and so it is likely that Filo’s 221 Data imparted by employees of the registry office at Trenčianska Teplá. Dubovec is awooded hill that divides Trenčianska Teplá from neighbouring Nová Dubnica. The mother initially told the authorities her name was Mária Kudriková, but later amended this to her real name, Anna Lakatošová.
97 nuclear family was living at that time together with the family of Filo’s mother Zaga and his younger siblings. From the places of birth of other children, Zaga’syoungest son Jouško (1924, Trenčín) and Zaga’snext grandson, Filo and Anna’sson with the nickname Bobko (1926, Sereď) it is clear that Zaga Stojková’sbranch of the family was mobile in the 1920s in the district of Trenčín and its surroundings but does not seem to have exceeded the area of western Slovakia. The family engaged in horse trading. Zaga and other women in her family were caught and arrested for “begging and vagrancy” several times, which indicates that this was afrequent complementary source of making aliving. It was consistently punished by the authorities at that time and in many cases resulted in short prison sentences, mostly of one day or amaximum of several days. The family of Štefan Stojka, Sr. Ihave managed to learn somewhat more from the records of the 1920s about Zaga’sbrother Štefan Stojka (*1891) and his descendants. Given that from this decade on there were several other men named Štefan Stojka who were part of the family, Irefer to the eldest Štefan, the founder of this family line, as Štefan Stojka, Sr. The birthdates and birthplaces of his family members show that Štefan Stojka Sr.’s three grandsons, the sons of his son Ján, were born in Trenčianská Teplá in 1919, 1923 and 1933, and were also named Štefan, and that Štefan Stojka, Sr. himself had another son, born in 1929, who was also named Štefan. They were all domiciled in the municipality. According to the Evidencie vydaných domovských listov (Register of domicile certificates issued), Štefan Stojka, Sr. applied twice, once in 1924 and once in 1927, for adomicile certificate in Trenčianska Teplá (in both cases the application states: “for reason of identity”).222 In the April 1924 nationwide register of “gypsies” domiciled in municipalities in Slovakia, published in part by Nečas, the number of Roms in Trenčianska Teplá is given as eight and in Dobrá, 11.223 However, Roms who were domiciled in the municipality but who were not present during the census were evidently not on the list, so the information on the size of 222 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenčinska Teplá, k. 62– Evidencia vydaných domovských listov obce Tr. Teplej aDobrej od roku 1924–1939. 223 This is very probably the Facona family, who lived there in several houses with numbers described in the 1930 census as “gypsy huts”. ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenčianska Teplá, Sčítanie ľudu zroku 1930, ev. č. 6009/30. Ctibor Nečas, “Materiál oRómech na Slovensku zroku 1924”. Historická demografie, vol. 22, no. 1 (1998): 177–178.
98 the Romani community in Trenčianska Teplá is clearly incomplete. Lists of names from the same period show that there were no other Romani families living directly in the municipality except for the Stojkas, so the number of eight Roms ought to correspond to the number of people on the list from this family. From the official records, however, it is impossible to pinpoint to what extent Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his relatives were territorially connected to Trenčianska Teplá. It may be asked– and this is aquestion which Ialso dealt with in the case of Zaga Stojková– to what extent his family had arelatively permanent base here and whether they set out from here to do business (above all, horse trading) in the surrounding area, or whether, on the contrary, they spent most of their time travelling these routes and only returned sporadically to Trenčianska Teplá. If they did reside there reasonably permanently, did they live in awagon or tent, or did they already have an improvised dwelling or wintering place to which they returned? Icannot answer these questions with certainty for the period of the 1920s. Adetailed search of the Trenčín archives and the local chronicle yielded no results. It is interesting that in the archival files for the municipality, all the official records relating to Štefan Stojka, Sr. in that decade and the following one list his place of residence (or actual residence) as Trenčianska Teplá, but with no specific address or house number as the other residents have. This indicates that Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his family did not live in ahouse with an officially registered number, but were just registered as belonging to the municipality, with their domicile there. Still, the records relating to Štefan Stojka, Sr. in this and other decades in the collection of the notary’soffice in Trenčianska Teplá are more complete and consistent than are the records of other Roms from his family. They always list his full birthdate and it is always the same, just as the names of his parents are always the same, and his profession is “horse merchant”. It is clear that the officials knew Štefan. This was not the case with other Roms, including his partner and children, whose dates and places of birth, first names and surnames vary across the records. Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his eldest son Ján (*1905) earned their livings as horse traders, travelling with horses and awagon around the municipalities of the nearby area. Aunique picture of their life is given in an article published by the newspaper Lidové noviny in July 1924, describing their alleged conflict with the “gypsy blacksmith” Herák in Veľké Bierovce, amunicipality in the Trenčín district about 25 kilometres from Trenčianska Teplá. The dispute is said to have arisen over asilver chain
99 with ahorse’shead. In the article, Štefan Stojka is presented as a“gypsy merchant who was selling and buying horses here, […] agypsy duke, wealthy, who does not speak to every gypsy”, but who because of the desired jewellery224 “lowered himself and went to Herák to ask him to sell him the chain.” 225 The value of this article as testimony is unfortunately reduced because of its sensationalist tone,226 but it indicates the high social status and socioeconomic position of Štefan Stojka, Sr. (merchant, duke, wealthy) compared to Herák, whose position could not have been too low, however, since he was ablacksmith who had his own house and amaid, which was certainly not common at that time among the group known as Slovak Roms. In addition, the report indicates that an added factor in the dispute was the distance between the two groups of Roms. These may be recognised as the Slovak Roms, represented by Herák and his wife, and the Lovara, represented by Stojka father and son. The 1930s: A change of spatial trajectories While in the 1920s both Stojka siblings and their families had been territorially connected to asimilar degree with the municipality of Trenčianska Teplá, and while their spatial trajectories clearly did not differ much either, being limited to the wider region of Western Slovakia at the most, in the 1930s there was adivergence between the spatial mobility of Zaga’sfamily and her brother Štefan’s. Once again, Ishall reconstruct the spatial mobility of the family’stwo branches separately. First Ishall look at the trajectories of Štefan Stojka, Sr., which in this decade were more connected not just to the area of western Slovakia, but also to the municipality of Trenčianska Teplá. I shall then describe my findings 224 Jewellery like this is still thought of by Lovara in the Czech lands and Slovakia as astatus symbol, especially among high-status Roms (Angluno Rom, Krísako Rom, atd.), see also Markéta Hajská, “The presentation of social status on asocial network: The role of Facebook among the Vlax Romani community of Eastern-Slovak origin in Leicester, UK”. Romani Studies, vol. 29, no. 2 (2019): 135. 225 [author] -el. “Cikáni Stojkové (Porota v Trenčíně).” Lidové noviny, vol. 32, no. 331 (3. 7. 1924), 6. 226 It is interesting that Lidové noviny– which might be described as one of the most serious dailies in Czechoslovakia in the period in question and of key importance to analysing the political situation in the Czech lands– when writing about Slovakia or Sub-Carpathian Ukraine, would often write in aprejudiced and sensationalist manner about the local inhabitants and ethnic minorities. The historian Kateřina Čapková has drawn my attention in this context to stories written in asimilar tone about Hasidic Jews and other minorities from the sub-Carpathian region.
100 concerning the mobility of Zaga Stojková and her children, which became more and more oriented towards the Czech lands. Trajectories of the family of Štefan Stojka, Sr. in the 1930s As shown by archival records, in the 1930s Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his family moved around the area of Western Slovakia. According to the available archival sources, their spatial mobility chiefly covered the Trenčín district and the nearby areas. The great majority of records localise Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his descendants in the 1930s in the Trenčín area and surrounding districts: Of 38 localisation points Imanaged to find from the 1930s, 28 come from today’sTrenčín district, of which 14 are from Trenčianska Teplá itself, while seven further points include today’s Ilava district, Prievidza, Bytča, Martin and Žilina.227 An exception are three records from Northern Moravia (Místek 1931, Kunčice 1931, Český Těšín 1934), of which one concerns Štefan228 and two his eldest son Ján.229 This indicates that this branch of the family was also mobile in parts of Moravia not too distant from Slovakia. Another unique source that contains much information about the life of Štefan Stojka, Sr. is a chapter from Slovak journalist Slavo Kalný’sbook Cigánsky plač asmich [Gypsy Tears and Laughter] entitled “Ukrivdeny koniar” [The wronged horse trader]. In it the author describes the main events in the life of “Štefan Stojka from Trenčianska Teplá”, described as afamous horse trader whom the author repeatedly used to meet and who was growing old at the start of the 1960s in asmall cottage in Trenčianska Teplá.230 The chapter starts with an outline of the areas in which Štefan Stojka carried out his trading activities. Given the context of what comes next, the description clearly concerns the interwar period: Even today, when you ask older farmers in the villages, the meadows and the hills from Trnava to Liptovský Mikuláš, from Bánovce to Nové Zámky, 227 Ibase this on archival material in ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia trestaných občianov obce Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1949. 228 Areport from the local authority in Místek dated 15 May 1931 states that Štefan Stojka, Sr. had arrived there and was asking to renew the itinerancy document issued to him in April 1929 in Žilina and renewed there in April 1930. Štefan was accompanied by his partner Karolína and daughter Iboja. SOkA Frýdek Místek, f. OÚ Místek, I. č. 868, Signatura: III/1. 229 In 1931, Ján’sdaughter Papuša was born in Kunčice, see ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia trestaných občianov obce Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1949. 230 Kalný, Cigánsky plač, 60.
101 and even on the Moravian side around Uherský Brod, Hodonín and Vsetín whether they know the old gypsy Stojka, they will cast their minds back, think hard, suddenly come to life, afan of wrinkles will spread over their faces and they will say: “The trader?... Of course we knew him. He outsmarted every other dealer he traded so cleverly.231 At the time of the chapter cited (1960), Štefan Stojka was almost 70 and had been trading horses for over 50 years in ahighly unique way. The author of the book spends several paragraphs describing how Stojka was said to carry out his trade, no doubt drawing on various stereotypical anecdotes circulating about Romani horse traders at that time. Ishall give two examples which, according to Kalný, showed Stojka, Sr.’sbrilliant professional astuteness combined with his use of various ruses and sharp dealing practices: Stojka knew how to transform horses! With his expert touch, secret dressage and strange fodder, he would change even acarcass into agalloping horse.”232 “…few could outwit him, few could knock him out in aslippery trading duel. His omnipresence and gypsy originality had made him popular. With his dealings and methods he was famous as atrade partner, abroker, asalesman, feared, hated, three hundred times cursed.233 Štefan Stojka, Sr., who according to Kalný was present as atrader literally everywhere, appearing at the right time at every significant horse market, was said to have amassed not just prestige, but also arelatively large amount of money. Kalný expresses horror at Stojka’sexploitative practices and alleges they were behind the amount of money he made. We have to take into account the fact that Kalný was starting from the contemporary principles of socialist doctrine, which rejected “exploitative self-enrichment” as asign of capitalism. This was certainly reflected in the generally mocking tone used to describe Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his trading methods, combined with amarkedly racist disdain for his “gypsy origin”. This was clearly the way in which Kalný came to terms with the fact that Štefan Stojka, Sr., as a“gypsy”, amember of agroup that at that time was assumed to be on the fringes of society, had managed to amass so much property and social recognition at that time. 231 Ibid., 59. 232 Ibid., 60. 233 Ibid., 61.
102 Kalný states that Štefan Stojka, Sr. used to travel with the aid of aladder wagon, to which he harnessed “the thoroughbred brindled horses, the others he attached with ropes behind the wagon, put his family inside and off they went.”234 These descriptions may, however, correspond more to the postwar period, from which Ihave found photographs of Štefan Stojka, Sr.’sfamily with ahorse harnessed to aladder wagon. What type of wagon he owned in the 1930s is not known precisely. In the municipal register of horses that was kept between 1936 and 1939, there are three records of horses that Štefan Stojka, Sr. declared to the authorities. In 1936, he was listed as the owner of abay horse with ablaze, estimated value 2,400 Czechoslovak crowns, which died in 1937 in the municipality of Velká Udiča, Povážská Bystrice district. In July 1937, Štefan Stojka, Sr. bought from Juraj Kotlárik of Orechové anine-year-old gelding draught horse, chestnut with astar, estimated value 3,500 crowns. He sold it to someone in Kunčice on 2 December 1937. He bought another registered horse from his neighbour Ladislav Lehota of Teplá, apparently in 1937, and sold it in June 1938 to someone from Bolešov, Ilava district, but neither the price nor adescription of that horse are given.235 Ialso have discovered arelatively large amount of information on Štefan Stojka Sr.’seldest son Ján, born in 1905. In his case, too, it is possible to reconstruct his territorial shifts during the period in question, above all in the area of the neighbouring districts and in the surroundings of Trenčianska Teplá, where he was domiciled. In 1935, the notary’soffice in Trenčianska Teplá issued him acertificate of domicile at his request.236 While in the records from 1933 to 1935 there is anote next to his name saying “residence unstable”, in the records from the second half of the 1930s, Trenčianska Teplá is listed as his place of residence.237 As can be seen from the records of his profession in the local notary office’sregister, Ján earned his living as ahorse trader too, and it may be assumed that he set out independently to buy and sell horses, without Štefan Stojka, Sr. Ihave found just sporadic evidence of Ján’sactivity. For example, there is an announcement of livestock passes lost, published in the periodical Krajinský vestník pre Slovensko in 1935,238 mentioning the 234 Ibid., 59. 235 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, Administratívne spisy 1939, složka Klasifikácia koní, ev. č. 5542. 236 Ibid., ev. č. 77, k. 19, Evidencia vydaných domovských listov k obci Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1939. 237 Ibid. 238 “Ločaj Juraj zHája oznámil sratu dvoch dobitčích pasov”, Rubrika Straty, Krajinský vestník pre Slovensko 8, April 10, 1935, p. 187.
103 Map 1: Reconstruction of Štefan Stojka’s family spatial mobility in the 1930s. Raškovice 1938 Trenčín 1933 193 193 193 1938 1939 19 19 1 19 $ Velká Bytča 1938 Žilina 19$9 Te;lička nad VáCoA 1933 Prievidza 1933 Ilava 193 193 TrenčianZka Te;lá 19$ 19$ 19$9 193ca19 Vepkm Bierovce 19$
104 sale of ahorse– an eight-year-old dark brown gelding with asmall white star– for which alivestock pass was issued in Trenčianska Teplá to Ján Stojka, domiciled there. Ján subsequently sold that horse to Juraj Ločaj of Háj near Turčianske Teplice. In February 1939, Ján Stojka bought another officially-registered horse from Ján Mandinec of Vyškovec (Uherské Hradiště district).239 It is clear that the mobility of Štefan Stojka Sr.’sfamily branch in the 1930s was chiefly connected with the territory of Western Slovakia, to which were added occasional journeys to North Moravia240 at the start of the decade. From countless records noting the residence of Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his family in the municipality of Trenčianska Teplá for various reasons, Iinfer that they either returned to the municipality frequently or had apermanent base there. Once again the question arises of to what extent Štefan’sfamily may be presumed to have resided in Trenčianska Teplá on amore permanent basis. Although their itinerant activities were carried out most frequently in the immediate geographical surroundings of the municipality in which various members of the Stojka family were registered as both resident and domiciled, and while this might suggest that they were at least partly settled there, Ihave not managed to find any proof that they had areasonably permanent presence in the community before the second half of the 1930s. Štefan Stojka, Sr. applied to the notary’soffice in Trenčianska Teplá atotal of four times (in the years 1935 to 1939) for adomicile document (the reasons are mostly unspecified, and just once is areason listed, that of marriage). In all cases, domicile and residency in Trenčianska Teplá is listed next to his name on the basis of his “right to domicile on the basis of Section 6, Art. XXII/1886.”241 On the other hand, there are notes in the official records regarding the unstable residence of Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his family members. For example, in the cases of his daughters, partner, and niece (the daughter of Štefan’ssister Mária), the register sometimes lists their residence and domicile as in Trenčianska Teplá, although the note: “domicile unstable/ 239 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, Administratívne spisy 1939, složka Klasifikácia koní, ev. č. 5542. 240 The journalist Kalný also remembered the area around Uherský Brod, clearly on the basis of details given to him by Štefan Stojka, Sr. himself (Kalný, Cigánsky plač). 241 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia vydaných domovských listov kobci Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1939. and Evidencia vydaných domovských listov kobci Trenčinska Teplá 1939–1945.
105 unascertained” or “residence unstable” sometimes appears next to their names. The repeated notes added next to their names, such as “gypsy vagabond”, “gypsy– vagabond”, “travelling gypsy” and “gypsy without employment”, do not, however, mean that these people did not live in the municipality, since the term “gypsy vagabond” was used at that time as asynonym for the term “gypsy”. The disproportion between the lack of detail about Štefan Stojka Sr.’schildren and the women in the family and the figure of Štefan himself shows that he was the one who had dealings with the authorities as head of the family. In some cases his son Ján might have been involved, but the other members of the family were little known to the non-Romani surroundings and to the authorities in particular. The authorities at that time operated via the official heads of such groups, for whom the majority population used the word vajda (later, during the war, this became acompulsory, elected function). It was these “heads of families” or vajdas who dealt with officials on behalf of their family members. This allowed the vajdas to keep the other members of the local community in acertain limbo. Aturning point came in the second half of the 1930s, when Štefan managed to buy ahouse and land in the municipality. This detail first appears on an official list of domicile certificates issued with the date 22 January 1938, when his residential address is given as “no. 273 Trenčianska Teplá”. This is the first time that aresidence linked to aparticular address, aspecific house, appears in the municipal records in connection with the Stojka, Sr. family. According to Kalný, the land was bought and the house built in 1936 or 1937. In 1936 or 1937, when his wallet was so full it was bursting at the seams and the leather bag he kept under the seat of the wagon was stuffed round and fat with money, Stojka threw awedding party for his daughter that is still remembered to this day. It lasted three days and three nights and not only did the wedding guests and the innkeeper come to the feast, but villagers who were not shy or who wanted to have afree drink and to congratulate the newlyweds and father Stojka came too. After the wedding he counted his money and found he still had ahuge amount, not much had disappeared either from his wallet or his leather bag. All I’m lacking is ahouse, he thought to himself.– Even if Inever sleep in it, Ineed ahouse. Ahouse is ahouse, ahouse counts for something. People will say: That Stojka’sdifferent, he has ahouse. One day he set out with abrickmaker friend along the road that leads from Trenčianska Teplá to Trenčianske Teplice and chose asuitable piece of land.
112 ly, broadly corresponding to nuclear families, moved around the territory independently and then met up again at arranged places. The family of Zaga’sdaughter Barbora (*1914) and her partner and later husband, Juraj Horváth (*1912) split off from Zaga’sfamily in the early 1930s. Their first child was born in February 1933. Afew years later, Barbora’ssister Kuluš (*1920) also peeled away from the family. She married Antonín Horvát, whose Romani nickname was Vido (*1914) and who was the brother of her brother-in-law, Barbora’spartner Juraj. Ishall spend alittle time on the Horvát brothers now. They came from aLovara family domiciled in Bohdanovce, Trnava district. Their father, Pavol Lakatoš, was born in Bohdanovce in 1871 to parents named Joannes Lakatoš and Mária Stojka. In the register of births he is entered as Paulus Lakatos (the Latin form of his first name), and the note Zingari vagi [Gypsy vagabonds], hic dicti [here called = so-called] Valachici [Wallachians] RCath [Roman Catholic].259 Pavol Lakatoš took awife, Mária, whose surname was Horvát and who was born in 1885 in Trnava to parents named Pavol Horvát and Mária Stojková. According to the records, Pavol Lakatoš and Mária Horvátová had four sons– in addition to Antonín and Juraj there was the eldest, Martin (*around 1910, probably Mária’sillegitimate son from her previous relationship) and the youngest, Ludvík (*1918). As was the custom with unmarried couples, all the sons took their mother’ssurname, Horvát. Pavol and Mária did get married in the end, but only after all their sons were born, in July 1918.260 With the marriage their mother gained the surname Lakatošová, but her sons remained Horvát. With this family, as with the Stojka family and Trenčianska Teplá, it is possible to observe territorial ties with amunicipality, in this case Bohdanovce nad Trnavou. The father of the family, Pavol, was born there in 1871, as was Juraj in 1912, Antonín in 1914 and the youngest, Ludvík, in 1918. The family was last recorded in 1931 in the official “register of gypsies”261 living on territory falling in the administrative area of the then-notary’soffice in Boleráz, belonging to the municipality of Bohdanovce. This was also the only Romani family living in Bohdanovce. The head of the family, Pavol Lakatoš, is listed as a“horse trader” by livelihood. Anote at the end of the census entry for the whole family reads: “Wandering in an 259 Slovakia Church and Synagogue Books, 1592–1935, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org /ark:/61903/1:1:V1CR-8Y2),), [cit. 1. 6. 2023]; FHL microfilm 2,386,075. 260 Štátny archív Trnava. ObNÚ Boleráz k. 48, kn. Evidencia cigáňov 1931–1935. 261 Ibid.
113 unknown place”, and the record is dated 2 December 1931.262 Thanks to archival finds in the state district archive for Praha-východ in Přemyšlení, however, Iam able to state with certainty the name of the place where the family was present at about that time. It was this family who, together with the family of Zaga, Filip and Anna, had been checked by policemen in the Central Bohemian municipality of Mnichovice on 26 November 1931 just acouple of days before this official record was made.263 On the list made during the police control in Mnichovice, all the members of the families checked were mentioned by name. The family headed by Zaga included her daughters Barbora (age 17) and Kuluš (age 11). Right behind them are the names of Pavol Lakatoš, his wife Mária, who by then was already using the surname Lakatošová, and their four sons. It is interesting that the surnames of the sons are not listed precisely, but recorded as being the same as their parents, Lakatoš. Their real surname was Horvát, which they had used in previous years and would also use after the war. It is likely that by then Juraj, at 21 officially an adult, was already living with the 17-year-old Barbora. Their parents (the seemingly widowed Zaga and the couple of Pavol and Mária) may have seen each other already as chanamikura, aterm that establishes arelationship between the parents of ayoung couple. Among the Lovara, this was arelationship traditionally connected with mutual respect. It is likely that the family of Pavol Lakatoš and his children, like that of Zaga Stojková, moved around the Czech lands alarge part of the time in subsequent years, probably mostly in Moravia.264 Nevertheless, Barbora and Juraj moved around independently from February 1933, when their son was born in the Slovak municipality of Teplička nad Váhom. This is also, for anumber of years, the last official record that Ihave found regarding astay by someone from Zaga Stojková’s branch of the family on Slovak territory; all the other records find the family in the Czech lands. Imanaged to localise the family of Barbora and Juraj Horvát in September 1933 in Brno, in December 1933 in Kunštát,265 and for the last time in 1936 in Moravská Ostrava, where 262 Ibid. The data is confirmed as still valid as of 3 March 1933. No other record of them was made in this book for the municipality of Bohdanovce. 263 SOkA Přemyšlení, f. OU Říčany, i. č. 427, ev. č. 246. Výkaz cikánů potulných přistižených vroce 1931 četnickou stanicí vMnichovicích. 264 Iam not able to identify the precise movements of Pavol Lakatoš and Mária Lakatošová during the subsequent years because their names are too common, making it impossible to identify any points on their migration trajectories uniquely with certainty. 265 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia vydaných domovských listov kobci Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1939.
114 another son was born to them in March. His birth certificate contains the following note (fairly unusual for this type of document) next to the name of his mother Barbora: “agypsy vagabond trader, domicile not ascertained, resident in Trenč. Teplá. Unmarried concubine of Jiří Horvát”.266 When exactly her younger sister Kuluš separated from Zaga’sfamily is not known. Antonín, together with his father Pavol Lakatoš and his father-in-law Filo Stojka, was falsely accused of stealing horses in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm in 1935,267 so their families were at that point both in the same place at the same time. Kuluš and Antonín’sson was born in May 1937 not far from Opava. In 1937 and 1938 Antonín is found repeatedly registered with the authorities in the district of Místek268 and in July 1938 he was checked by the authorities in Opava.269 Localisation of Zaga Stojková’s mobility points on the map The scattered records relating to the Stojka family in various Czech and Slovak archives cry out to be mapped spatiotemporally. By analysing the different points localised in time and space it is possible to portray this family branch’smobility. In order to localise members of the Stojka family during this period, Iuse all the data on the birthdates and birthplaces of their children270 and also police reports (the “gypsy registrations”) and other official records on “vagabond hordes” arriving. An occasional archival source that is complicated from an ethical point of view is the record book from the district notary’soffice in Trenčianska Teplá entitled Evidencia trestaných občianov obce Trenčianska Teplá 1933–1949 (Register of the convicted citizens of the municipality of Trenčianska Teplá 1933–1949), in which all the offences committed by persons domiciled in Trenčianska Teplá that 266 The birth certificate is part of the personal file on the above-mentioned son, Silvester Stojka, in his application for acertificate under Act no. 255/1946, Coll. of applicant S. S. (*1936). Jiří was in fact named Juraj, q.v. the trend described above for registrars in the Czech lands to use the Czech equivalents of Slovak names. 267 Lidové noviny. Brno: Vydavatelské družstvo Lidové strany vBrně, 31 March 1935, 43 (165, morning edition), p. 8. 268 Černý, “Lovárové”, 22–23. 269 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia trestaných občianov obce Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1949. 270 It follows from these sources that children from this part of the family were born in 1931 in Kunčice, in 1936 in Moravská Ostrava, in 1937 in Opava and in 1938 in Paskov, Místek district.
115 took place on Czechoslovak territory were listed. Idiscussed the problematic nature of using this source in the introductory chapter. When Iwas putting together an outline of Zaga’sbranch of the family and its members’ spatial mobility, this source helped me to localise individuals precisely while at the same time saying something about the permanence of their relationship with the municipality to which they administratively belonged. In January 1933, Zaga’sfamily was in Místek, two months later they were in Frýdek, in September 1933 they were in Brno, in December 1933 they were in Kunštát, then in August 1937 they returned to Frýdek, in March 1939 they were in Chomutov (northwest Bohemia, in the Sudetenland) and in July 1938 they were in the Silesian capital, Opava.271 The presence of these family members in Moravia is also shown by historian Rostislav Černý in his study of the Lovara community in the Místek district during the First Czechoslovak Republic. He cites archival police records according to which, in March 1933, “Anna Lakatošová came to the office with arequest for the issue of aduplicate itinerancy document for herself, Zaga Stojková and Filo Stojka”.272 He goes on to say that Anna had an original itinerancy document issued in 1930 in Žilina that was damaged. The district office in Místek in March 1933 then extended her itinerancy document for ayear. In May, according to the Šumperk police records, the said Anna declared the loss of her itinerancy document in the municipality of Frankštát (Nový Malín), Šumperk district, and the lost document was to be sent to her in Ústí nad Orlicí, where she was said to be.273 Černý also provides evidence of these family members being present in the Místek area in 1931 (Anna Lakatošová and Zaga’sdaughter Grófa) and in 1936 (Zaga Stojková and other persons), and adds that groups of Lovara were to be found in the district when the horse and livestock fairs were being held.274 Černý also cites the chief of the Paskov police station, who describes regular “movements of alarge group of Romani horse traders who pass through the municipality on their way to the livestock fairs on the route Opava-Moravská 271 ŠA Trenčín, f. f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia trestaných občianov obce Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1949. 272 Černý, “Lovárové,” 13–14. 273 SOkAFrýdek-Místek, f. OÚ Místek, k. 723, i. č. 824– Opis úředního záznamu Policejního komisařství vŠumperku z26. 5. 1934. 274 Černý states that horse dealing was the main reason why the Lovara regularly, month after month, visited the district town of Místek, where livestock fairs were held during acertain period. (Černý, “Lovárové”, 24).
116 Ostrava-Český Těšín-Frýdek/Místek.”275 As we can see on the map, in the second half of the 1930s in particular, the Opava area became the region around which the family repeatedly moved, passing through various municipalities. If we take into account the fact that the reason for their presence in the Frýdek and Místek areas was the livestock and horse fairs, there remains the interesting question of why their family and other Lovara families also moved around in other districts. Did the Lovara also attend horse fairs in other places? Was their increased movement in the Opava and Litovel districts connected with the sale and purchase of horses traded on the market in Místek? In this regard the archival reports are fragmentary, and there is no explanation of the reasons for their presence in other villages or towns. The police reports from Místek and Frýdek are, in this respect, unusually detailed. The report from the Krásná police station, for example, contains this detailed description: “At each horse fair in Frýdek taking place annually in the markets, several male members of the gypsy hordes appeared in order to trade horses. Their women and children usually camped in one of the villages surrounding Frýdek, and after the fair the gypsies would leave our ward.”276 Although this description does not identify aspecific Romani group, it corresponds to Lovara testimonies describing the horse fairs as involving Romani men who then took their earnings back to their women and children. Information on the places where the group stayed is also provided by the press of the time. Despite the undoubted difficulties277 of working with such sources, Imanaged with the help of the media of the period to localise members of the family in March 1935 near Frenštát pod Radhoštěm,278 and in 1936 and 1937 several times in the Opava district in Silesia.279 275 Ibid. 276 SOkA Frýdek Místek, f. OÚ Frýdek, i. č. 780, k. 641, Oddělení Český Těšín, stanice Krásná č. 27– Cikáni– podání zprávy (30. 1. 1935). 277 As Istated in the introductory chapter on methodology, this source needs to be treated with caution, since information on “gypsy vagabonds” most often appeared in sections reporting on the criminal activities of these groups, with the tendentious aim of fuelling anti-Romani feeling and exoticising these people. 278 [author] -in. “Cikán jako vyděrač a tajný.” Lidové noviny, vol. 43, no. 165 (31. 5, 1935), 8 279 [author n.a.] “Ausgeforichte heudiebe.” Neues Tagblatt für Schlesien und Nordmähren, vol. 4, no. 260 (5. 11. 1937), 4; [author n.a.] “Diebische Zigeuner.” Neues Tagblatt für Schlesien und Nordmähren, vol. 3, no. 51 (29. 2. 1936), 9; [author n.a.] “Berhastete Zigeunerin.” Neues Tagblatt für Schlesien und Nordmähren, vol. 4, no. 289 (9. 12. 1937), 6.
117 Brandýs nad Labem 1931 Chomutov 193 Šumperk 193! Kamenice nad Lipou 193! Stěbořice 193; Branka u Opavy 193; Opava 193 Paskov 193 Moravská Ostrava 193 Frýdek 1933 193; Místek 1931 1933 193! 193g 193; 193 Dobrá 19q; Trenčín 19q! Žilina 193 Zámrsky 1939 Odry 1931 Kuntát 1933 Humpolec 193g Čeladná 193 Trenčianska Teplá 19q¢19q! Sere¥ 19qg 193 Lhota Rapotina 193! Frentát pod Radhotěm 193! Teplika nad ´áhom 193! Brno 1933 Mnichovice 1931 Strakonice 193! Třeà 193! Lipník nad Bečvou 193g Map 2 Reconstruction of Zaga Stojková’s family spatial mobility in the 1930s.
118 From the data available, Icreated alist of the transit points where the members of this group appeared at acertain time. This map of Zaga Stojková’sfamily branch and its spatial mobility, including her sons and daughters’ nuclear families, who moved around independently, needs of course to be seen as just avery much reduced cross-section of the group’sreal movements, which cannot be fully reconstructed today. The trajectories of Zaga Stojková’sfamily (including her son Filo Stojka’sfamily and those of her daughters Barbora and Kuluš) led not just through Western Slovakia to northeastern Moravia and Silesia, but also into the Bohemian interior. This is shown by the above-mentioned records of their camping near Mnichovice and Kamenice nad Lipou, as well as by the birthdates and birthplaces of the family’schildren in Lhota uChroustovic, Chrudim district (1934) and Humpolec (1936) on the border of Bohemia and Moravia, although only in Moravia after the family of Filo Stojka was banned from Bohemia in 1934.280 The group managed to get around fairly quickly, considering that they travelled in horse-drawn wagons. Over the course of ayear they moved around to various places in the country (e.g. in 1931: 8 October Odry, North Moravia; 22 November Brandýs nad Labem, Central Bohemia– places almost 300 km apart; or in 1934: 1 August Třešť, Jihlava district, west Moravia; then 20 August Strakonice, southwest Bohemia, places about 140 km apart). Their journeys may have been connected with the profession of horse dealing, i.e., heading to horse fairs for the purpose of buying and selling horses, but they may also have been attempts to find new territories for their other economic strategies. It is likely that the reason they left Slovakia was an attempt to find anew territory for their professional activities from which it was hard to earn aliving in their original territory in the Trenčín area, given the high degree of competition between people engaging in the same economic activity (horse trading). Štefan Stojka, Sr. earned his living as ahorse trader and was clearly fairly well-known in the wider vicinity of Trenčianska Teplá. His eldest son Ján was also ahorse trader. For Filo Stojka, Zaga’seldest son, who also became ahorse dealer, it must have been fairly problematic to find clients in his original district without competing with his uncle and cousin. Moreover, there were also other Romani horse traders in the region. Leaving this area and trying to do business in anew territory must have been an attractive proposition, indeed anecessity. After the creation of 280 ŠA Trenčín, f. ObNÚ Trenč. Teplá, ev. č. 77, k. 19– Evidencia trestaných občianov obce Trenčinska Teplá 1933–1949.
119 Czechoslovakia, the logical solution was to move to the territory of Bohemia and above all Moravia, which was just over the nearest mountain ridge from Trenčín. However, we should not forget that in North Moravia in particular there were other active horse-trading families, above all from the Sinti group, while other Bohemian and Moravian Roms also earned their living through horse trading, and so there was competition from other Romani families providing the same services and clearly also using similar practices on the other side of the mountain ridge, too. We may assume that over the course of the 1930s, when there was arapid increase in the number of towns and villages in the Czech lands from which “gypsy vagabonds” were banned, along with ageneral rise of anti-gypsy sentiment in society, it was harder and harder to find new markets and to cultivate apermanent circle of clients and territories where it would be possible to do business. 2.3 The transformation of the spatial mobility of the Lovara in the Czech lands after the creation of Czechoslovakia The paths of Zaga Stojková’sfamily branch, and to alesser degree the paths of Štefan Stojka, Sr.’sfamily branch toward Moravia and Bohemia from the early 1930s correspond to the movements of other Lovara families from Slovakia in the period in question. As Iindicated in the previous chapter, after the breakup of the Habsburg monarchy and Czechoslovak independence in 1918 there was an overall transformation in many Lovara families’ mobility. Above all, there was agradual change in the overall composition of the Lovara families in the Czech lands, with agradual reduction in the number of Lovara coming over the new, southern border with Austria and an increase in the number of Lovara families coming into the Czech lands from the Slovak part of the republic. However, this transformation also noticeably affected Lovara living in Slovakia, above all in the belt along the newly-created Slovak-Hungarian border. Before the break-up of Austro-Hungary, the Lovara who lived there would also move around in Hungary south of the Danube river, areas which at that time were not yet separated by aborder from the future Slovak territory to the north. After the creation of Czechoslovakia, their trajectories no longer included journeys into Hungary. This pushed individual Lovara families to search for new territory on which to do business. It was in
120 reaction to this fact that the Lovara gradually moved from Western Slovakia to Moravia and Bohemia.281 Another hypothesis for their departure from Slovakia was the above-mentioned growing competition between providers of very similar services in the larger Lovara (but also wider Romani) community in Slovakia, which required the territorial dispersion of this activity. Some Lovara families seem to have come to the Czech lands mainly for business, chiefly horse fairs, or in order to perform crafts (mostly kettle-makers looking to sell, clean or tin kettles, blade sharpeners and so on), but regularly returned to Slovakia. However, some families aimed to move wholesale into this new territory. Lovara in the Czech lands in the 1920s The Lovara presence in the Czech lands has so far been of only marginal interest to Czech historians. Ctibor Nečas and Jana Horváthová have agreed that it was agroup that did not dwell permanently in the Czech lands, but merely transited through them.282 However, my research shows that although the Lovara did not form alarge proportion of Roms, historical research should pay attention to them because of their continuous presence in the pre-war and postwar periods. In the 1930s in particular, the Lovara spent long periods in the Czech lands, some staying there continuously year round. Let us return, however, to the start of the period, in other words, the period immediately following the birth of Czechoslovakia. Lovara from Austria continued to travel to Bohemia and Moravia even after the breakup of Austro-Hungary, as is shown by the 1920s news reports cited above,283 as well as by genealogical data from various Vlax Romani witnesses currently living in the Czech Republic who have spoken about 281 Andrš, “Our God”, 71–72. 282 E.g., Jana Horváthová, “Meziválečné zastavení mezi Romy včeských zemích (aneb tušení souvislostí).” Romano džaniben, vol. 12, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 65; Nečas, Romové na Moravě. Nečas describes the example of Vlax Roms arriving en masse in Central Bohemia in the summer of 1933, which Iwill discuss below. However, he describes the event as more or less episodic, with no further repercussions (Ctibor Nečas, Historický kalendář: Dějiny českých Romů vdatech. Olomouc: Palackého univerzita, 1997: 60–61). 283 For example, reports describing the sale and/or theft of horses by acertain Josef Stojka from Fischamend in Austria not far from Vienna in the Znojmo area in the early 1920s, published in the same form in the periodical Venkov, [Countryside the organ of the Czech Agrarian Party] ([author n.a.] “Krádeže koní.” Venkov, orgán České strany agrární, vol. 19, no 245 (17. 2. 1924), 4.) and in The Czech, aCatholic political weekly [author n.a.] “Krádež koní.” Čech: politický týdeník katolický, vol. 49, no. 53 (23. 2. 1924), 6.
121 their ancestors and other relatives who came from Austria. As my research shows, however, from the end of the 1920s and above all in the 1930s, the Lovara who came from Slovakia gradually started to numerically predominate. The Lovara had already been coming to the Czech lands from Slovakia to alesser extent earlier in the 1920s,284 but during this period they cannot, for the most part, be clearly identified in official records under the general reports of “gypsy hordes” or “gypsy vagabonds”. An exception are the police reports in which there are individual names of Roms whom my research indicates may be included among the Lovara. An example is areport from the Frýdek station of the Český Těšín police division dated 3 January 1928 stating that “on 10.2.1927 Pavol Stojka and Štefan Kotlář from Topoľčany, horse dealers” arrived in the town.285 Another example is areport from apolice check of Antonín Stojka, also of Topoľčany, on whom arepeating pistol was found in Místek in the summer of 1927.286 The movements of Roms in the Czech lands during the First Republic The Lovara formed just asmall proportion of the Roms who lived in the Czech lands during the interwar period. There were also families of Bohemian and Moravian Roms and Sinti who earned their living like the Lovara, through activities that required travelling– trading, services (mending umbrellas, wire work, making and selling slippers and so on) or entertainment (artists, fairground people and so on).287 In Moravia, 284 Černý, “Lovárové”, 14 and 19–20; Andrš, “Our God”, 72. 285 SOkA Frýdek Místek, f. OÚ Frýdek i. č. 780, k. 641, odd. Český Těšín, stanice Frýdek č. 19– Cikáni– výroční zpráva (3. 1. 1928). Once again Idraw attention to the habit among Czech policemen and officials of recording the Czech forms of Slovak names: Kotlář is the Czech form of the original Slovak name Kotlár, still relatively widespread among Vlax Roms, but also found among Slovak (non-Vlax) Roms. 286 SOkA Frýdek Místek, f. OÚ Místek, i. č. 876, k. 997,– Report from district police command in Místek, c. j. 594, Zákon opotulných cikánech, opatření. This is the well-known figure of Anton Stojka, alias Báno, who in 1951 was murdered in Komárno and sewn up inside his horse’sskin. This is still aliving legend told among the Lovara in the Czech lands and Slovakia. According to archival records, Anton Stojka had agun licence, and so he was allowed to keep his gun, partly for the reason that when he was arrested, “the police stations did not yet know the new law on wandering gypsies of 14 July 1927, which explicitly states in Section 6 that wandering gypsies are utterly banned from holding weapons, munitions, etc.” (Ibid.) 287 Jana Horváthová looks in detail at Bohemian and Moravian Roms in her recent publication (Jana Horváthová, ...to jsou těžké vzpomínky. Vol. 1. Brno:Větrné mlýny, 2021).
128 harnessed to them. They travel very quickly and are capable of covering several dozen kilometres in aday. They assemble in smaller or larger hordes. They also trade in horses, and individuals appear to have trade licences to that effect.312 The report also contains numbers, although we cannot consider these to be precise, followed by awarning of the security threat that these groups represent, in keeping with the contemporary pejorative idea of “gypsy vagabonds”: It is thus impossible for the police to make alist of these gypsies, of which there are found to be more than 100–150 persons and sometimes more than 60 wagons together, and so these hordes pass through with no guarantee that there are not among them elements highly dangerous to the state (spying, intelligence during the war?).313 In closing, the author returns to the subject of itinerancy documents: “From arandom check of these hordes it was ascertained that they have itinerancy documents which, according to what is written in them, permit them to travel over the territory of the entire state.”314 The report also states that every Friday these “gypsies” attend the horse fairs in Prague near the city abattoir in Holešovice. Two days later, abulletin from aPrague police station reacted to the report from Obříství, stating that: In the department here, 15 male and 14 female gypsies from the Lakatoš family and 31 men and 25 women from the Stojka family have been registered. According to information from the police station in Obříství, there are sometimes up to 140 such family members roaming in the vicinity of Mělník, with some of them having trade certificates as horse dealers, which makes it difficult for the police on duty to check them as gypsies.315 The above-mentioned mobility of the Stojka and Lakatoš families in Prague is an interesting fact, given that over amonth before these events, 312 Ibid. Zpráva zemského četnického velitelství, č. j. 1048/33 Cikánské tlupy Lakatošů aStojků– závady (19. 6. 1933), fol. 44. 313 Ibid. 314 Ibid. 315 NA Praha, f. MV– stará registratura, 5/98/3, k. 2431, č. j. 172– Hlášení četnické stanice Praha Velitelskému četnickému oddělení vPraze (21. 6. 1933).
129 on 13 May 1933, the provincial authority in Prague issued adecision entitled “Designation of the territory in the vicinity of Greater Prague that gypsy vagabonds are forbidden to enter”. This decision, issued under Section 10 of Act no. 117/1927, designated land that, from the day the report was issued, was out of bounds to “gypsy vagabonds”. As well as the city of Prague itself, this included the surrounding districts: Praha-Venkov, Říčany, Jílové, and part of the Brandýs nad Labem district.316 This decree would have necessarily included the Prague district of Holešovice, which the Lakatoš and Stojka families were permitted to enter because they owned trade certificates, as the documents cited indicate. The fact that members of the above-named families were allowed to travel all over the territory of Czechoslovakia made it difficult to control them from the police perspective. The fact that some Slovak districts issued itinerancy documents without any sort of territorial limitation, valid for the whole country, is also confirmed by acritical report from the Regional Authority in Bratislava produced in July 1931.317 This said that Act no. 17/1927 was interpreted differently in each district of Slovakia. The itinerancy documents issued by some authorities were drawn up in acursory manner without the necessary investigations being undertaken, the report said. It also admitted that itinerancy documents were being issued with no limitations, valid for the whole of Slovakia and often for the whole of Czechoslovakia, although such documents were meant to be issued only to “gypsy vagabonds who meet all the regulations concerning the trade they seek to ply”.318 The practice of issuing itinerancy documents in some Slovak districts which were valid for the whole country was also confirmed by my archival findings. The district authorities in Topoľčany listed people in the “Register of gypsy itinerancy certificates” who had been issued itinerancy documents. Next to their names were listed the territories where the document would be valid. Of seven people with the surname of Stojka (the father, Michal, and his adult sons Ladislav, Pavol, Ondrej, Josef and Antonín) and the surname of Kotlár (Štefan; one case) who were all labelled “horse traders”, five were issued itinerancy documents valid for Slovakia and Moravia in 1929–30, and the rest were issued documents 316 Ibid. Alist of the territories and municipalities covered by this measure was drawn up in detail for Moravia and Silesia by the historian Ctibor Nečas (Nečas, Romové na Moravě: 201–209). No such list has as yet been drawn up for Bohemia. 317 NA Praha, f. MV– stará registratura, k. 2431, i .č. 6501,sign. 5/98/3. Krajinsky úrad Bratislava, Cigáni potulní, prevádzanie zákona č. 117/1927 Sb. z. an. vl. nariad. č. 68/1928 Sb.z. an. 318 Ibid.
130 valid for Slovakia, Moravia and Silesia. Another three people from other Lovara families in the same district, labelled “travelling gypsies” (so not “horse traders”, who clearly had ahigher status) had documents in which the territorial validity was limited, for example, to the districts of Topoľčany, Bánovce, Prievizda and Nitra, or in which acertain area was defined (such as between Bratislava, Žilina, Galanta and Komárno). All these permits were periodically renewed, but their territorial validity did not change.319 Still, the principle that an itinerancy document with wide-ranging territorial validity could be issued to a“gypsy vagabond” just on the condition that such aperson already had atrade licence, as is indicated above in the report from the Bratislava Regional Authority, was only partially fulfilled for the seven men mentioned above. My further archival findings show that of the seven Roms from Topoľčany who had itinerancy documents valid for the territory of Slovakia and Moravia (or also Silesia), just four had atrade licence for livestock dealing. This is recorded for 1932 in the republic-wide Gazetteer of the Czechoslovak Republic for industry, trade, business and agriculture. This listed Michal Stojka, Ondřej Stojka and Ladislav Stojka from Topoľčany and Štefan Kotlár from Soľčany as livestock traders with their own trade certificates.320 All three Stojkas were also listed as carrying on such atrade in the same gazetteer for 1935,321 with the name of Štefan Kotlár no longer appearing. Nevertheless, in the case of three other men from the Stojka family in Topoľčany, namely Ondrej, Antonín and Josef, trade licences were not shown to the authorities, yet they still gained official permission to travel over the territory of Slovakia and Moravia, and in Antonín’scase also Silesia.322 Not one of them had avalid itinerancy document for the territory of Bohemia. In July 1933, the Provincial Authority in Prague issued acircular entitled “Incursion of gypsy hordes from Slovakia into Bohemia”, once again stating, in line with the above-mentioned newspaper article (A-Zet), that the districts of central Bohemia “have been flooded with hordes of gypsies, above all the Lakatoš and Stojkas of Slovakia, to whom the 319 ŠA Nitra– pobočka Topoľčany, f. OÚ Topoľčany, i. č. 25A– Evidencia cigánskych kočovníckych legitimácií. 320 Adresář Republiky československé pro průmysl, živnosti, obchod azemědělství, 1932. Praha: Rudolf Mosse, p. 3119. NA ČR, Knihovní fondy aslužby, Sign. 54 D 003848/1932. Sv. 1. 321 Adresář Republiky československé pro průmysl, živnosti, obchod azemědělství, 1935 (Praha: Rudolf Mosse, p. 3063) and 1936 (Praha: Rudolf Mosse, p. 3079), NA ČR, Knihovní fondy aslužby, sign. 4–0092.312. 322 ŠA Nitra– pobočka Topoľčany, f. OÚ Topoľčany, i. č. 25A– Evidencia cigánskych kočovníckych legitimácií.
131 Slovak authorities have issued itinerancy documents allowing them to travel all over Slovakia.” The circular called on state bodies to proceed according to Act no. 117/1927 with the aim of ejecting these “hordes” from Bohemia and preventing them from returning. If it was not possible to proceed according to Section 13 of Act 117/1927, district and other relevant authorities were called upon to take the necessary measures leading to the ejection of “gypsy vagabonds” from Bohemia in the interest of maintaining public order and securing private property. 323 Another circular from the Provincial Authority in Prague, no. 456.831 of September 1933, dealt with the “incursion of gypsy hordes from Slovakia into Bohemia” by requiring the authorities to amend the extent of the permission granted to the “gypsy hordes” to travel so that they were no longer allowed to travel in Bohemia. It ordered changes to be made to their itinerancy documents and subsequently that these groups “be ejected from Bohemia in the direction of Slovakia”.324 The proposed approach may be considered agross breach of their personal freedoms. Clearly, however, it was this approach that was taken in the above-mentioned deportation from Bohemia of Filo Stojka and other Lovara in the summer of 1934 by the Strakonice district authorities. The routes of the Lovara from Slovakia to Bohemia are traced in detail in a2018 article by Rastislav Pivoň, who mapped the trajectories of several specific people domiciled in the Trnava district. Pivoň’sstudy confirms my findings regarding the movements of Lovara from Slovakia not just on Moravian territory, but also in Bohemia before the summer of 1933, when police tightened their approach to “gypsy vagabonds” who did not “belong” to the region. Apolicy was adopted to strictly remove “gypsy vagabond” families, and clearly not just Lovara ones, from Bohemian territory. Let us now look at the above-mentioned cases from another angle. The question presents itself as to whether the families with the surnames of Stojka and Lakatoš who were subjected to frequent checks in Central Bohemia in the summer of 1933 may have included members of the Stojka family from Trenčianska Teplá which Iam researching. Unfortunately, this can be neither proven nor disproven, since Ihave not managed to 323 NA Praha, f. MV– stará registratura, k. 2431, i. č. 6501, fol. 42, sign. 5/98/3. Oběžník ZÚ Praha 334.782 ai 1933 Vpád cikánských tlup ze Slovenska (14 July 1933) addressed to all local authorities in the land of Bohemia. 324 Ibid. Oběžník ZÚ Praha 456.831 ai 1933 Potulní cikáni závadné vystavování cikánských legitimací, nesprávný postup OU, vpád cikánských tlup ze Slovenska do Čech (29 September 1933)– to all local authorities in the land of Bohemia.
132 find, in any archives, the lists of the named persons who were checked during the above-mentioned controls in the summer of 1933. However, given that the family was moving around the Czech lands at that time,325 it would not be surprising if it formed part of this group of “gypsy vagabonds from Slovakia”, as the group numbered up to 150 people. Here it is necessary to perceive the family Iam studying as forming part of alarger Lovara community whose individual parts would break off from the family with varying frequency and then join back up with it again. On their travels they would meet other Lovara who were not necessarily always their relatives. They then underwent police checks together with them, or together found their way into official reports for various other reasons. Ithus believe that the boundary between the family in question and other Lovara families needs to be perceived as fluid and permeable. The Lovara moving around Czechoslovakia in various directions during this period should be considered acommunity of people who met each other not just at horse fairs and designated camping places, but also in various other places, and who spoke their own dialect of Romani not always comprehensible to other non-Vlax Roms. As is clear from the witness narratives and from the fact that the authorities often used the word “relatives” to label groups between whom there was no actual familial relationship, it was possible to find highly functional relationships of solidarity and various interconnected solidary and reciprocal networks among the Lovara. It is also important to note that krísi (Romani courts) were already being held during the interwar period, that respected Roms from far-off destinations would come to them, and that there existed sophisticated methods through which the Lovara let each other know that these courts were being held. Lovara movements around the Czech lands in the second half of the 1930s Attempts to deal with the presence of “travelling gypsies” from Slovakia can also be found in the state archives in the Czech lands in subsequent years, although to alesser degree. In January 1935, for example, the Provincial Authority in Brno issued acircular dealing with the situation 325 In March 1933, Zaga’sfamily branch was in the districts of Frýdek and Místek, but for the other months we lack information. It is not until July 1933 that arecord of Filo Stojka appears in Olomouc, while arecord of his sister Barbora appears in Brno in September 1933.
133 in the town of Polička and ordering the police “not to eject the Slovak gypsy hordes found there back over the border into Bohemia in general, and especially not into the Polička district”.326 The circulars gradually started to deal with “gypsy vagabonds” coming from Germany, Austria, and later from the Sudetenland. Groups of “Slovak gypsies” gradually stopped being mentioned in official reports and records, save for comments on the police checks of such families. Reports on the mobility of individual Lovara families and their arrivals in Moravian and Silesian municipalities in particular continued to appear until the early spring of 1939. We may also assume that the mobility of families from Slovakia on Bohemian territory was made considerably more difficult by the approaches and policies formulated in the above-mentioned circulars promoting arestrictive approach towards the “gypsy hordes” and above all the possibility of amending such persons’ itinerancy documents with regard to their territorial validity and legally deporting entire groups from the territory in question. No historian has yet looked at the question of how many Lovara there were in the Czech lands in the interwar period, so it is difficult to give any sort of estimate. Černý has estimated the size of the Lovara community moving around the district of Místek at about 100 people.327 Ialso managed to find records for most of the persons named in his study in neighbouring districts such as Frýdek, Litovel and Prostějov. Ialso found many named in records for other areas of Moravia, Silesia and Bohemia. The police records from Prague and its surrounding areas from the summer of 1933, cited herein several times, mention 100–150 individuals. To state the total number of Lovara, however, we would have to look through the complete records of the Central Police Patrol Division, the central depository for records of “gypsy vagabonds” made on the basis of the 1927 law. Despite considerable efforts, Ihave not managed to find any such collections in the archives, just files containing statistics in the form of numbers where, once again, all the “gypsy (vagabonds)” are lumped together without their surnames being listed, providing no opportunity to carefully distinguish between them, therefore. An interesting regional contribution to the question of how many Lovara were in the Czech lands in the 1930s is anewspaper article entitled “Gypsies and travellers– children of nature”,328 published in the 326 NA Praha, f. MV– stará registratura 5/98/3, k. 2431, ZÚ Brno č. j. 2913/III-7 Polička, určení území, do něhož jest potulným cikánům vstup zakázán. 327 Černý, “Lovárové”, 24. 328 E. Peřina, “Cikání akočovníci– děti přírody”, Polední list, no. 75 (15 March 1936), p. 7.
134 periodical Polední list in March 1936. The article states the names “that are most often found among gypsies”, and its author allegedly took them “from the statistics for eastern Bohemia over the last three years”, in other words, probably from the period 1933–1936. Against each surname the number of people with that surname is listed, clearly once again from eastern Bohemia, and in some cases the supposed geographical origin of the Roms with that surname is also given. Among the dozens of names are surnames that occur among the Lovara, such as: Banda (4), Biháry (25), Danyš (12), Horváth (12), Lakatoš (51), Rafael (14), Stojka (70). Overall, therefore, 188 people are listed who are very likely to have been Lovara. This is an interesting fact, given that as Istated earlier, after 1933 or 1934, such families came from Moravia to the Czech lands just occasionally, so we may expect that the Lovara community moving around Moravia and Silesia was much larger than the Lovara in eastern Bohemia at the time. For two names, the author made anote regarding the origin of the Roms with that surname. Next to the name Lakatoš he wrote in brackets “Hungarian gypsies”, and by the surname Stojka, “Moravian gypsies”. Above all, the note on the Moravian origin of people with the surname Stojka indicates that from the perspective of officials in eastern Bohemia, these Roms in Moravia now seemed to have “put down roots” there after several years, which was maybe the result of Lovara repeatedly stating, when checked, that they were coming from Moravia, or showing itinerancy documents which said they were allowed to move around Moravia. Last but not least, it is important to mention that the list also includes two surnames of the Kalderash Roms whom Imentioned above: Běla, of whom there were 45 persons listed with the note “kettle-makers”, and Kwiek (22 persons) with the note “Polish gypsies”.329 Using my own database of Lovara families, described in detail in the chapter on methodology, Iadded 196 records from the 1930s from the Bohemian and the Moravian archives showing police checks or applications relating to people who, on the basis of several indices, were Lovara. These 196 people were accompanied by afurther 580 people, according to the official records.330 However, this figure is not particularly helpful, for two reasons. First, the number is underestimated, mostly because police reports often did not quantify the size of the group accompanying the “head of the family”, but gave just his name. Of these 196 records, the number of additional persons accompanying the leader is not reported 329 Ibid. 330 Ifound these records in the following archives: SOkA Blansko, SOkA Frýdek Místek, SOkA Jindřichův Hradec, SOkA Olomouc, SOkA Pelhřimov, SOkA Přemyšlení, SOkA Zámrsk.
135 for 130 of them, which is aconsiderable number. In some cases, therefore, Iincluded in the overall number just the “head of the family”, although it is very likely that these people did not travel alone, but were accompanied by their families, of whose size we have no details. Iam also aware that the numbers could be overinflated, because these notifications and lists repeat the names of some individuals, sometimes several times. As far as the “heads of families” are concerned, (in other words, the people who were recorded by state bodies), there were at least 92 in my database. However, Ido not possess the necessary data for some, such as “gypsy” identity cards or other information to compare with other records, so it is not possible to determine whether aperson named, for example, Ján Rafael, who is listed three times, actually appeared in various places with his family three times, or whether there were three different Ján Rafaels, each with his own family. In other cases, some names appear in various places at various times and it turns out that, according to other data, these are in fact multiple appearances of one and the same person. For example, František Lakatoš, born in 1896 in Sereď, Galanta district, is found atotal of 11 times during the 1930s on the territory of Moravia: twice in December 1931 in the district of Prostějov, eight times in 1934 (Prostějov, Litovel and Svitavy districts) and twice in 1938 (Místek and Frýdek districts). Regarding the extent to which the Lovara moved about Bohemia compared to Moravia, it can be seen from the database that of these 196 records, just 48 are from Bohemia, while 148 are from Moravia. With the exception of six records made by (the same) police station in the Hradec Králové district in 1938, all the other records from Bohemian districts end in the summer of 1934. This once again confirms my hypothesis regarding the tightening of restrictions on “gypsy vagabonds” from Slovakia by the Bohemian authorities. Of the 196 records, in only 140 cases do we know the precise date on which they were made. In 50 cases, just the year was recorded, without the day or month of the police check in the territory in question. To return to my thoughts regarding the seasonal presence of the Lovara in the Czech lands, where Iinvestigated the likely year-round presence of Zaga Stojková’sfamily in the Czech lands, my survey suggests that of the 140 cases where we know the precise date of an official check in the Czech lands, 76 were made in the winter period (from mid-November until the end of March, so less than half the year). This confirms my previous conclusions that many Lovara from Slovakia during this time spent the whole year in the Czech lands, rather than being there just seasonally.
136 Another question concerns the size, at that time, of the family groups which were labelled, using the highly pejorative terminology of the period, as “hordes” and which travelled together around the Czech lands. The size of the accompanying group was given only for some “heads of family”. We see that some families had four members (three families) or five members (four families). However, it was much more common for there to be more than five family members (for example, 12 families had six members, while nine families had eight members). An exception was the group led by Ján Kudrik, stopped by police from Hvozd in the Litovel district in 1934. This family had 24 members and for that reason was taken to the police station for the offence of camping in “hordes exceeding the framework of the [nuclear] family”.331 This went against Act no. 177/1927, where Section 7 stated that: “wandering gypsies are not allowed to travel and camp in hordes exceeding the framework of the [nuclear] family”. Nor in the other cases was it exceptional for groups to exceed 10 members (six of the 92 “heads of family” were travelling with 10 people, one with 11 people, one with 14 and three others with 16 people when they were checked by police). To make aqualified estimate of Lovara numbers in the Czech lands during the First Czechoslovak Republic is something Idare not do, therefore, not even on the basis of thorough study. Nevertheless, Iestimate that the overall number of Lovara who, according to my database, might have undergone state checks in the 1930s was around several hundred persons. Conclusions: The situation of the Lovara in the Czech lands in the interwar period Several important conclusions may be drawn from the information above. While on the territory of Slovakia the Lovara were territorially anchored in some locations during the interwar period, Iknow of no instances, from the area of the historical Czech lands, of Roms from this group buying or renting aproperty to which they might regularly return. Nevertheless, it cannot be completely ruled out that some wealthy Romani families rented short-term accommodation or stayed in hotels, although Ihave found no record of such stays. An approximately 50-member Kalderash family, relatives of the Polish “gypsy king” Michał 331 SOkA Olomouc, f. OÚ Litovel, i. č. 797, k. 667, Dohled nad cikánským obyvatelstvem 1896–1961, Četnická stanice Hvozd: Úprava Stíhání cikánů– (20. 12. 1934), č. j. 2204.
137 Kwiek, briefly lived in the Czech lands in the first half of the 1930s this way, according to Nečas, successively renting apartments in the Prague suburb of Strašnice (for nine months), Hradec Králové, Chrudim, Kutná Hora, Karviná and Ostrava.332 This once again shows that asufficiently large sum of money was able to break down the otherwise impenetrable social boundaries whereby “travelling gypsies” were perceived as marginalized people. According to Nečas, the Kwiek family owned wagons (maringotky), but had them transported by rail for long distances (for example, from Pardubice to Bohumín),333 which shows that the more affluent Roms were able to move greater distances by alternative means to that of horse-drawn transport. The Lovara who remembered life in the Czech lands during the interwar period said they almost always travelled only with horses and wagons in which they spent the night and lived all year round. Their way of life and how they spent the night were described by J. B., whose family earned aliving making and cleaning kettles: We had huge wagons, carriages pulled by horses. We children would travel all warm under the feather quilts and outside it would be cold. We’d travel like that for maybe 20 kilometres. Then we’d stop near awood, they’d make afire and then they’d make abig tent out of tarpaulins. That’swhat we’d sleep under.334 The way of life described by such witnesses indicates that Lovara spatial mobility was relatively intensive in the interwar Czech lands. There was clearly no territorial anchoring of Lovara families at all, with the exception of their repeated return to horse fairs or to see customers. The type of territorial bond common among the Lovara families in Slovakia during that same time was never created by Lovara in the Czech lands. Records of their fairly irregular, territorially extensive movements across the Czech lands in the first half of the 1930s show that Lovara families tried to find territory where they might do business, but we have no evidence that any of them managed to find such an area. Although Roms from the Stojka family and other Lovara families moved around several northern Moravian districts in the second half of the 1930s, we have no 332 Nečas, “Cikánský král”, 19–22. 333 Ibid. 334 Witness J. B. (*1934), recorded on 5 February 2002 in České Budějovice, Czech Republic by Markéta Hajská. Archive of Člověk vtísni, o.p.s.
144 from staying on Czechoslovak territory.337 The result was that in subsequent years there was an increase in the frequency of movement by Romani groups originally from German territory in the western, northern and southern border regions of the Czech lands.338 The frequency with which such Romani families arrived increased after the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938 and after the Sudetenland, the extensive border area of the Czech lands, was annexed by the German Reich in September 1938. In November 1938 the Central Police Patrol Division informed the commands of the individual police divisions that: following the occupation of the annexed territory, large numbers of gypsy and other travelling, workshy hordes are appearing, coming from the annexed territory and having never previously appeared on the territory of the current state, or not for many years. Under Section 9 of the law of 14 July 1927, no. 117, ‘on wandering gypsies’, foreign gypsies are banned from staying in Czechoslovakia. Under Section 4 clause 3 of the government Decree of 26 April 1928, no. 69, the gypsy identity card will be taken away from any gypsy vagabond found not to be acitizen of Czechoslovakia. These provisions require all gypsies who clearly belong to the annexed territory to be deprived of their gypsy identity card and the gypsies in question to be handed over to the relevant foreign authorities.339 The circular refers to the situation where at least some of the German Roms and Sinti had clearly managed to become Czechoslovak citizens by making use of gaps in the system of issuing identity cards to “gypsy vagabonds”. They secured Czechoslovak “gypsy” identity cards or itinerancy documents purely on the basis of certain documents (such as christening or domicile certificates) which then served as official proof of their Czechoslovak citizenship.340 In practice, all travelling groups on the borders were prevented from entering Bohemian or Moravian territory if their members were not domiciled there, and in the other direction, Roms with Czech domiciles were not allowed to enter the territory of neighbouring states.341 In 337 Above all the circular cited above, ZÚ Praha číslo 456831 ai 1933 of 29 September 1933. NA Praha, MV stará registratura 5/98/3, k. 2432. 338 Nečas, Českoslovenští Romové, Nečas, Romové na Moravě. 339 NA Praha, f. ZÚ Praha, k. 853, ÚČPO č. j. 28.798/1938–Postup proti cikánům zodstoupených území pro velitelství četn. oddělení (5. 11. 1938). 340 Baloun, “Metla našeho venkova”, 292–294. 341 Nečas, Českoslovenští Romové, 29–31.
145 reaction to this situation, on 13 March 1939 the provincial authority in Prague issued circular 36/128, entitled “Measures against gypsies and other vagabond persons: Orders”, which called for Act no. 117/1927 to be properly upheld and stressed that “itinerancy on the part of gypsies with foreign citizenship will not be suffered any longer and their immediate deportation over the border is ordered”.342 The circular was the last comprehensive measure regarding “gypsies” to be issued by the Czechoslovak authorities before the division of Czechoslovakia, which occurred literally during the next few days. After the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created, its new executive organs continued to proceed in line with this circular,343 with the difference that “gypsies with foreign citizenship” now included “gypsies” with the citizenship of the independent Slovak State. This had serious consequences for their ability to remain on Protectorate territory.344 During the division of Czechoslovakia there was also increased movement of Roms at the Protectorate’snewly-created eastern border.345 Roms and other travelling groups from Slovakia found themselves forced to return to the newly-created Slovak State. It should be mentioned that in the official records, the mobility of Roms from Slovakia is paid only marginal attention. There are sporadic mentions in local police reports of the departures or transfers of Slovak “gypsies” being organised and registered by the police. The movement of “gypsy groups” around the new borders with Germany featured far more frequently in the police reports, above all in the months between the Sudetenland seceding and the division of Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, Imanaged to find, at both the central and local levels, several records relating to the departures or deportation of Romani groups to the Slovak State. The sudden departure of Roms after 15 March for the newly-created Slovak State understandably concerned not just the Lovara who had been moving about the Czech Republic, but also other Roms and Sinti with Slovak citizenship. This increase in mobility naturally also concerned Roms and Sinti who did not have 342 NA Praha, f. ZÚ vPraze– Policejní abezpečnostní záležitosti, k. 853– Opatření proti cikánům ajiným potulným osobám, pokyny, fol. 193, č. 36/128 for the year 1938 (13. 10. 1939). 343 Zdeněk Šípek. “Tzv. Cikanská otázka od Mnichova do konce roku 1939.” Český lid, vol. 79, no. 2 (1992): 163. 344 Here it ought to be mentioned that during the breakup of Czechoslovakia, these circulars were only acollection of orders designed for the executive authorities. None was aimed in particular at Roms from Slovakia and their return to their place of domicile. 345 Ibid., 163.
146 citizenship of the former Czechoslovakia, but who were just fleeing registration by the state authorities and who became the main target of the police patrols, which subjected them to thorough identity and citizenship checks. In this study, however, Ishall exclusively focus on the archival materials in which Lovara domiciled in Slovakia can be identified in some way, although the group Iam following was in amarked minority in the existing reports compared to other Roms and Sinti. Unsurprisingly, we most often find information concerning Lovara in the reports from police stations in the Moravian regions close to the Slovak border. The police station at Frýdek, for example, issued areport for 1939 stating that: during the year 1939, gypsy hordes appeared in this district some 43 times, being checked by individual police stations. They came mostly from Moravia, to alesser extent from Bohemia, but earlier had also come from Slovakia. During the checks it was found that they were gypsy vagabonds from the ranks of horse dealers, umbrella menders, knife sharpeners, wandering musicians, etc. The gypsy hordes were not permanently settled in this district.346 For the same period, 1939, the police station at Unčovice, Prostějov division announced: The movement of gypsy hordes was greater this year, given the exceptional conditions, than in previous years. In all atotal of 117 gypsy hordes were detained by police. […] One foreign horde was transferred over the border. Gypsies of Slovak nationality returned back to Slovakia.347 In this document we see that Slovak Roms were not yet seen as belonging to the category of “foreign gypsies”, although in practice they were already being deported from the Protectorate to the Slovak State. Similar news came from the Vilémov police station in its report from the end of December 1939: 346 SOkA Frýdek-Místek, f. Četnická stanice Frýdek, i. č. 22, Hlášení An den Der Oberlandrat Mahr. Ostrau, Frýdek (31. 1. 1940), no č. j. 347 SOkA Olomouc, f. OÚ Litovel, zn. fondu L 1–5, k. 667, i. č. 797, Dohled nad cikánským obyvatelstvem1896 až 1944– Zpráva oddělení Prostějov, stanice Unčovice: Stíhání cikánů, (16. 1. 1940), č. j. 29035/1/III. Handwritten report, the word “back” in the last sentence was subsequently crossed out.
147 The gypsies with Slovak citizenship whom we checked after 15.3.1939 we returned mostly to the Slovak border. In the fourth quarter of 1939 we no longer found gypsies with foreign citizenship during the checks of gypsies travelling through the district.348 The Bouzov police station stated that in 1939 they checked “gypsy hordes” headed by Ján Stojka (a three-member family), Karolina Danišová (10 members), Maria Lakatošová (10 members) and other (non-Vlax) Roms and Sinti with the surnames Růžička (twice), Paffner and Kotas. According to the report, these “hordes” were controlled in January and February 1939 and from then on were not found in the district.349 The report does not state whether the Stojka, Lakatoš and Daniš families were considered Slovak or foreign “gypsies”, but merely represents confirmation of the fact that after March 1939, there was atransformation in the spatial mobility of these families. This fact was also confirmed by other reports. Most clearly describe their absence as the result of the restrictive measures, above all the limits on entering the country and the deportations over the border. Likewise, the report from the Trojanovice police station in the Místek district contains the following: “After the events of 15 March 1939, gypsy travelling almost stopped because gypsies from Slovakia were prevented from crossing the border.”350 Concrete examples of transferring “gypsy hordes” to Slovakia are documented by areport from the Frýdlant nad Ostravicí police station from 13 December 1939, which states that in 1939 the station carried out, on the orders of the police directorate in Moravská Ostrava, the transfer of a“gypsy horde” to the Slovak border, the reason being that they were Slovak citizens. In another two cases, also concerning “Slovak gypsy hordes”, the station checked them and called on them to return to Slovakia, which they apparently then did.351 Reports of Romani groups departing for Slovakia also appear sporadically at the nationwide level. In areport from the Interior Ministry to the Land Authority in Prague dated 11 April 1939 and entitled Gypsies– foreign citizens, it was announced that “according to areport from the Central Police Patrol Division in Prague, wandering gypsies have been 348 Ibid., Četnická stanice Vilémov, subject: Evidence cikánů, 23. 12. 1939, č. j. 1691/1939. 349 Ibid., f. Četnická stanice Bouzov, okr. Litovel, subject: Evidence cikánů, č. j. 29601/1/III/39 (15. 12. 1939). 350 SOkA Frýdek Místek, f. OU Místek, k. 997, i. č. 876, Úprava stíhání cikánů, zpráva. 351 SOkA Frýdek Místek, f. OU Místek, k. 997, i. č. 876, Úprava stíhání cikánů.
148 changing their stopping places rapidly and it is possible to observe their movement towards Slovakia.”352 This report indicates that the departures of “wandering gypsies” from the Protectorate in the direction of Slovakia were spontaneous– which, as we shall see below, was one of the ways in which this process was characterised by witnesses from Lovara families themselves. As we can see, however, the previous announcements from police stations had frequently mentioned the forcible ejection of Romani groups over the Slovak border and the prevention of their entrance into the Protectorate, which is what other Romani witnesses also describe. 3.2 Change of citizenship as a reason for leaving the Protectorate The reason Slovak Roms left the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia or were deported from it after the breakup of Czechoslovakia was the change in their civil status. The legal frameworks and founding documents of the newly-created states (the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak State) redefined who would now be their citizens. After the end of the Second Czechoslovak Republic, around 300,000 Slovaks found themselves without citizenship in the Protectorate (which covered the territory of the Czech lands), suddenly becoming foreigners unless they were already domiciled in amunicipality there. As historian Jan Rychlík has described, however, anti-Slovak feeling appeared only occasionally in the Protectorate, and there was no political interest in deporting the Slovaks who lived there. The German authorities approved residency in the Protectorate for non-Jewish, non-Romani Slovaks more or less without any difficulty and they were hardly ever deported. Deportation, Rychlík says, was used by the Protectorate only in the case of criminals such as beggars, thieves and prostitutes, in collaboration with the Czech police.353 From his description it can be seen that the category of citizenship allowed the authorities afairly free hand when it came to granting residence on Protectorate territory. Lawful deportation on the basis of citizenship, in other words, could be used to get rid of persons in the categories listed above who were unwanted by local authorities and the 352 NA Praha, f. ZÚ Praha, k. 853, č. j. 18.676/1939–5. 353 Jan Rychlík, Češi aSlováci ve 20. století. Spolupráce akonflikty 1914–1992 (Praha: Vyšehrad, 2015), 12.
149 state.354 Although Rychlík does not explicitly mention this category, on the basis of my research Ican add that these unwanted persons included people labelled “gypsies” or “gypsy vagabonds” as the authorities had no political interest in their remaining in the Protectorate (on the contrary). Roms from Slovakia were therefore moved de iure, literally overnight, from the category of native “gypsies” to the category of foreign “gypsies”, whose deportation was enabled by Section 9 of Act no. 117/1927, which was still in effect. As the announcements from police stations show, however, on alocal level police continued to distinguish between Slovak “gypsies” and other foreign “gypsies”, even though both groups were deported. The authorities’ approaches to these groups differed, and as we shall see below, in the case of “gypsies from Slovakia”, aconsiderable role in the whole process was played by their spontaneous departures from the Protectorate, however much those might have been provoked to various extents. The change in citizenship resulted in Slovak Roms being prevented from entering the territory of the Protectorate and being expelled back to Slovakia should they try to enter. Police stations in the Protectorate managed to react very quickly to the new situation, and in the space of afew months at the most, Roms with Slovak domiciles or citizenship had been ejected from Protectorate territory. Domicile became key to the question of who was able to remain in the Protectorate and who had to leave. Roms with anewly-acquired foreign citizenship had no chance of remaining, as can be deduced from the numerous records of intensive police searches for “gypsy hordes”, above all for Roms with German citizenship, over the entire territory and the subsequent deportation of these “hordes”. The need to return to Slovakia affected all Slovak Roms living on Protectorate territory. In the case of the Lovara, who as “wandering gypsies” were highly visible, departure from the Protectorate affected all the families living on the road on Czech territory across the board. The only ones who managed to stay in the Protectorate were individuals who were able to hide their membership of such travelling groups. In the case of entire families it has to be assumed that they did not stay in the Protectorate. 354 Slovak Jews were also deported, however, and found themselves in adifficult situation, since Bratislava was not interested in their immigration (Ibid., 224–226).
150 3.3 Returning to Slovakia from the point of view of Lovara witnesses After the creation of the Slovak State, the Lovara had to return to the municipality in which they were domiciled, although they often no long er had functional ties to that locality. This situation occurred among those Lovara who had been moving about the Czech lands in the 1930s. Some of them had probably not returned at all in the previous decade to the Slovak municipality in which they were registered, and so their domicile there had become purely formal. Such families had no social ties there. They were understandably viewed as foreign and as not belonging to the municipality by both the local authorities and the autochthonous inhabitants. The authorities often had an interest in getting rid of these new arrivals, who were viewed as asecurity risk, and they prevented them from settling in the municipality. An example of such forced return to the place of domicile is the Lovara families who, at the behest of the authorities, had to return to Pastuchov, not far from Hlohovec,355 where an extended family of Roms had been domiciled since the period before the creation of Czechoslovakia. During the First Republic, their trajectories changed in keeping with their livelihood, the manufacture and cleaning of kettles, which took them to the Czech lands. Witness J. B. remembers that in Pastuchov “some of my relatives had been born before then, some of my uncles, when we used to travel about there.”356 According to my archival findings, however, their ties to the municipality had been more intensive and permanent in the past, and all that remained of them was aformal bond– that of domicile. After the creation of an independent Slovakia in March 1939, several Romani families were forced on the basis of this domicile to return to the municipality to which they belonged. However, none had lived in the small village in recent years, and none of them had created any ties to the locality. According to the witness cited, 10 or 15 related families were forced to return to Pastuchov at the beginning of the war, headed by his grandfather. They were sent to aplot of land about akilometre from the municipality. According to areport from the 355 Ilooked at this case briefly in my article (Hajská, “We had to…”), and here Iwill look at it in more detail and from another perspective. 356 J. B., male (*1934), recorded 5 February 2002 in České Budějovice, Czech Republic by Markéta Hajská. Archive of Člověk vtísni, o.p.s. To reconstruct the situation in Pastuchov Iwill also use the testimonies of other witnesses from this family such as O. B. (*1932) recorded on 15 April 2002 in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic by Milada Závodská, Archiv spol. Člověk vtísni, o.p.s.; and O. K. (*1932) and R. R. (*1935), both stored in the VÚA VHA Praha, f. Sbírka osobních spisů žadatelůovydání osvědčení podle zákona č. 255/1946 Sb., os.
151 Rišňovce police station in 1941, in the municipality of Pastuchov there were “25 gypsy vagabonds, all with domiciles in Pastuchov. These vagabond gypsies have neither horses nor wagons and now they are all living in Pastuchov.”357 On the basis of this report, we may presume that the Roms had either sold their horses and wagons or that they had been confiscated. The number of persons in this report does not correspond to the number given above by the witness J. B. (10–15 families), but the report may have just counted the adults. At first it seems they built improvised accommodation for themselves on the plot outside the village, as witness O.B. describes: “In the meantime we had ashed, which is where we slept. We didn’t have astove back then, just acampfire. So that’swhere we lived before my father built our house. It wasn’t until 1944 that he built the house.“358 Those houses seem to have been destroyed at the end of the war by German troops. Arriving in amunicipality where such Roms had never owned any houses, despite the whole family or at least one of the parents being domiciled there, often meant that they were officially allotted aspecific place that had clearly been their camping place or wintering place previously. This experience was described by Lovara witnesses from three municipalities in the district of Trnava (Križovany, Bohdanovce and Hrnčiarovce). They said that several Romani families “returned” at the same time to these municipalities during the period in question and that sometimes they were extended families with many branches. Witnesses of this transfer from the Protectorate frequently described their departure to Slovakia as forced, in reaction to the newly-approved “law”359 ordering them to return to the municipalities where they were domiciled.360 Other witnesses interpreted this event as an “escape”, motivated by the attempt to “save their lives”, thus indicating their role as actors in this process who had decided to choose where they would live.361 The same motivation can be observed with Bohemian and Moravian Roms and Sinti who emigrated to Slovakia during the same period, thereby avoiding the mass deportations to concentration camps and oth357 ŠA Nitra/ Trnava, f. OÚ Hlohovec 1923–1944, k. 213– Kočovní cigáni, bezpečnostné opatrenie, č. j. 509/4, subject: Úprava niektorých pomerov cigánov, šetrenie z16. 5. 1941. 358 O. B. (*1932) recorded on 15 April 2002 in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic by Milada Závodská. Archive of Člověk vtísni, o.p.s. 359 This was not anew law, as some of the witnesses describe it, but the institution of domicile and the legal frameworks governing it were transformed after the creation of the Protectorate and an independent Slovakia. 360 Hajská, “We had to run away”, 70–71. 361 Ibid., 78.
152 er drastic “solutions to the gypsy question” underway in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.362 The Lovara who had moved around the Czech lands in the interwar period and who were ejected from the Protectorate in 1939 also survived as agroup the genocide of the Romani population on their territory. Their names did not appear on the lists of those interned in the concentration camps designated for Roms on Protectorate territory (Lety uPísku, Hodonín uKunštátu), nor were they transported to Auschwitz.363 362 Ibid. 363 Ibid., 52.
256 The organisational measures for the register also contained lists of persons for the various places where the register was to be taken and their estimated numbers, divided into “gypsies” (adults and children separately) and “showmen” (again adults and children separately). In each MNV the necessary rooms were reserved for the register, and aworking group was set up to perform the register consisting of officials from the ONV, the secretary of the MNV, clerks and apolice officer to ensure order and escort people if necessary.642 Register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons in Louny and Žatec The register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons took place nationwide on 3–6 February 1959. In Louny, all the members of the family being followed here were processed on 3 February 1959. On the preserved register sheets643 there is anote next to the three families in Anna Stojková’sbranch of the family stating that they owned a“covered wagon– caravan”, and that one also owned a“drop-sided wagon”. In the January 1959 preliminary lists, two families had anote next to their names stating that they owned either a“drop-sided wagon” or “wagon with atarpaulin”, but those same families have anote next to their names in the February register reading “no means of transport.” In the interim these families may have been moved inside the brickworks. The number of wagons does not correspond to the information that the ONV later provided in areport to the KNV on 10 February 1959 which states that “five gypsies, of which four are children, still live in acovered wagon”.644 It is interesting that just one family (Jouško, Anna’sbrother-in-law) is stated to own ahorse: “one gelding, grey 12 years”.645 Ahorse (grey) was also noted in January 1959 in the case of another family, but not in the final register. 642 SOkA Louny, f. ONV Louny II, vnitř. 608, k. 332– vnitř. Organizační opatření kprovedení soupisu kočujících apolokočujících osob vokrese Louny vlednu 1959 (with no date, no č. j.). 643 The register documents have not been preserved for all the families. Ihave documents for seven nuclear families and two childless individuals over 15. 644 SOkA Louny, f. ONV Louny II, vnitř. 608, k. 332– Report from ONV Louny: Provádění soupisu osob kočujících apolokočujících (10. 2. 1959). 645 Ibid.
257 In Žatec, the register took place on 4 February 1959. Ihave managed to find just two register sheets in the state archives in Louny646 for the family of Antonín (Vido) Horvát, his wife Kuluš and their six minor children, and the family of Bakro, their adult son. We learn that they all lived together in acaravan at Ostrov in Žatec and did not have adriving licence or atrade licence. Horses are not mentioned for them and no other information is available. The course of the register is described in areport by the ONV dated 10 February 1959 that states: In the district of Louny the register took place […] in accordance with the organisational plan. During the register no disturbances took place and all those who were summoned turned up for register at the various centres. No one was brought by the police.647 Another report for the KNV on 15 April 1959 stated that: “In our district there were no complaints that anyone had been wrongly registered.” An entirely different version of the register process was described by Berci Stojka, who witnessed this forced sedentarisation: When they brought us to the brickworks we had horses to start with, so my uncles could travel to horse markets and do other business, but then the ban on travelling came and they took our horses. Policemen and soldiers came for us, plus civilians, probably from social services or the local authority. About ahundred people. That was the worst thing that could have happened to us. We couldn’t travel any more. Istill remember how we all cried. Grown-ups, old Roms were crying, screaming. The children were sobbing. My grandmother was crying, wailing with pity. There was nothing we could do. They came to us armed, with guns. We were worried that if we defended the horses, they’d shoot us. The Roms ran into their wagons. We children hid under the wagons, we were afraid they’d take us. My grandmother called to me: ‘Berci, run away, hide!’ She was afraid they’d take us to achildren’shome, because my mother was in prison and she was looking after me by herself. Iran inside and hid under the bed. The police took our horses, eight horses in total, and put them on wagons. Then they said: ‘Right, they’re going to the knacker’s.’ They took away all our horses, even my little horse Fricko. He’d grown up with me, from acolt. And we stayed there in those wagons for several more years.648 646 Ibid., Register lists by names of persons. 647 Ibid., Report from ONV Louny: Provádění soupisu … (10. 2. 1959). 648 Personal recording of Berci (*1949) by the author made on 18 December 2018 in Louny, Czech Republic.
258 This testimony, showing the register as afundamentally violent event that took place in the presence of the armed forces, differs so much from the register’sofficial description that Iam inclined to think it must have taken place on adifferent day from the officially planned register at the MNV premises on 3 February 1959. This may have been an incident from the end of January 1959, when preliminary lists of “gypsy families” were drawn up on the spot by officials and functionaries in the presence of security forces. For the witness, at that time achild, this may have merged in his memory with the filling-in of forms at the MNV in February 1959. In any case, the above-cited instructions from the KNV called for the February preparations for the register to be attended by all sorts of security forces and organisations, which might account for the large number of people whom the witness remembers coming to the brickworks. Still, the description urgently conveys the Roms’ powerlessness and fear of the state representatives, whom the Stojka family perceived as afundamental threat against which they were afraid to protest in any way. Whether this event took place on 3 February or several days earlier at the end of January 1959, it is clear that for these Roms, the “register” represented an act of repression and violence against them by the state bodies. An important question is how and when their horses were confiscated. Neither the report on the register nor any other reports in the archives contain any further information on whether, how or when the horses were confiscated from the Stojka family and transported elsewhere. As Isaid above, horse ownership at the time of the register is recorded in the case of just one family (one gelding, grey, 12 years old, belonging to Josef, Anna Stojková’sbrother-in-law) and one more horse (agrey) was on the preliminary list of January 1958 as belonging to Anna’sson Michal. According to the witness, however, these Roms owned eight horses that were confiscated at that time, and 60 years later, Berci Stojka could remember their names and what they looked like. It has to be asked when the violent act he describes took place. For Berci, the confiscation of their horses was the crucial, most tragic event of the whole register process. Although the Interior Ministry’sinstructions for the register did contain orders on how to handle horses and wagons, the archival sources do not mention the question of how they were actually dealt with at all. That horses were taken from the Roms living by the river Ohře is, however, admitted by areport from Žatec of April 1959 where, in asection evaluating successes in finding employment for the Roms, the report says:
259 It has to be remembered that in the case of persons from the gypsy camp, things were much helped by an operation in which the police seized their horses, which were then confiscated. This deprived them of their permanent, easy income source.649 Although we do not know when these horses were taken away, it is confirmed here that this was done by the police and that the Roms did not receive any compensation for their horses. In the brief reasons given for the operation, we see that the step was intended by the security bodies as an instrument of repression and assimilation, but its result was merely to increase the isolation and criminalisation of the persons in question. It has to be asked where these horses ended up after they had been seized without any proper official documentation of the whole process. It is clear that the Roms’ property was fraudulently taken off them and devalued, and that the local representatives of the state bodies and security forces took advantage of the Roms’ disoriented, marginalised position to steal their horses. Discrepancies in the number of horses are, indeed, remarkable in the February 1959 register on anationwide scale. According to the official statistics of the register, atotal of 61 horses were recorded in the Bohemian and Moravian regions and 11 of them were seized.650 This number is clearly very understated and is entirely at odds with what Lovara witnesses say. In Louny alone, according to the witness Berci Stojka, eight horses were seized (and put down), but other Lovara from other localities also report that horses were seized (and put down),651 although this understandably need not have happened on the exact date of register. Horses were very highly prized by the Lovara, and not just in the sense of their financial value, or as astatus symbol. They perceived the seizure and putting down of their horses as afatal incursion into their lives, and the whole event had ahuge emotional dimension for them. Some Lovara witnesses showed greater sorrow at the loss and death of 649 SOA Litoměřice, f. SKNV, odbor vnitřních věcí, zn. 608, V-10 Soupis kočujících Cikánů 1959–1965– Report from KNV, subject: Cikánská otázka do schůze (7. 4. 1958, no č. j.). 650 ABS, 8. schódza kolégia MV– 23. 3. 1959. A2/1, k. 306. 651 For example, Ludmila Lakatošová (*1943), recorded in Veltruby on 3 April 2009; personal recording of Štefan Stojka (*1940) by the author, made in Ostrava on 30 March 2017; personal recording of Štefania Stojková (*1936) by the author, made on 1 April 2023 in Ostrava; personal recording of S. L. (*1930) by the author, recorded in Kovanice in October 2008: and apersonal recording of Mária Lakatošová (*1951) by the author, recorded in Pečky on 24 April 2018.
260 their horses than at their own forced sedentarisation, which leads us to realise the cultural error and insensitivity of the state administration. 6.3 The listing of persons in the register The register undertaken under Act no. 74 of 17 October 1958 “on the permanent settlement of travelling persons” had along-term impact on the people included in it. They were now on aspecial official register established in 1959 at all the ONVs and police commands. This register subsequently recorded all changes concerning the people in question. The persons in the register had strict limitations on their ability to move around, especially in the years immediately following their register. According to Section 3 of Act no. 74/1958, continuing to maintain atravelling way of life was punishable by six months to three years in prison. In practice, this meant aban on leaving the municipality and the larger district where they were resident at the time of their register. From Berci Stojka’sperspective, the register meant his family’s freedom of movement came to an end: When the Roms were registered in 1959, it meant they wrote us all down. The adults got astamp on their identity cards that we lived in Louny. That meant we were banned from leaving the district. If we went out of the Louny district, it would be taken as if we’d tried to flee to the West, for example. Anyone who wanted to leave had to be able to show some sort of special permission. Aspecial piece of paper, adischarge, but what was on it Idon’t remember. In time, however, we got used to Louny and we didn’t even want to leave. Even if we’d wanted to, we couldn’t have left. We had to stay there.652 In the spring of 1959, quite soon after the register was completed, critical reports began to appear regarding the way in which Act no. 74/1958 was being observed in the Ústí Region. At the district level, the register agenda was the responsibility of the ONV interior affairs departments, which sent regular reports to the regional level in Ústí nad Labem. The reports by the interior affairs department of the KNV council in Ústí nad Labem included regular reports on the supervision of those on the register. Critical comments about the register can be detected in the 652 Personal recording of Berci (*1949) by the author, made on 18 December 2018.
261 evalutions of the register process sent by the Louny ONV to the KNV in Ústí nad Labem, as well as warnings that the law was not being upheld. From the perspective of the state, the law was being insufficiently observed at the local level, especially by ONVs in Slovakia, but also by some Czech MNVs and ONVs which were arbitrarily de-registering people. The upkeep of the register was therefore assessed as inconsistent. In the Louny and Žatec districts, however, the people entered on the register were checked fairly strictly. These measures had an undeniable impact in the Louny district (which in the 1960s joined with what was previously the Žatec district), above all on the Stojka and Stojka-Horvát families. Because they were registered as “travelling”, which in some official documents was shortened to “Kpersons” (for kočující, travelling), they were assessed by the state bodies as the “most backward” and “most problematic” among the “persons of gypsy origin”, and as such they were paid greater attention. They found themselves under the scrutiny of “gypsy” commissions, police bodies, and the interior affairs department of the ONV, which devoted themselves in detail to these “gypsies” in various reports and announcements. The authorities looked carefully at the question of moving the families outside the district, but they also tried to prevent other Roms from being moved into the district, above all relatives of the two families. The MNVs were called on by the ONV not to deregister, without the agreement of the interior affairs department of the ONV in Louny, any of the people on the register if they were intending to move away.653 Dealing and not dealing with living in caravans Although the register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons was described in its immediate aftermath by local bodies as having been successfully carried out, one of the greatest problems in the Louny and Žatec districts was the fact that suitable housing had not been found for previously “travelling persons”, which was meant to be one of the results of implementing Act no. 74/1958 at the local level. The thorn in the side of the authorities was the accommodation of the Stojka and Stojka–Horvát families, who continued to live in their caravans on the same sites, the old brickworks in Louny and at Ostrov in Žatec, for several years after being registered. 653 SOkA Louny, f. MNV Louny, i. č. 100– Letter accompanying the register sheets (5. 5. 1959) from the Interior Affairs Department of the Louny ONV to the MNV.
262 An attempt to solve the question of the unsuitable accommodation in the Roms’ own caravans was declared to be underway by the local and district authorities from the preliminary, preparatory phase of the register. Finding suitable housing for “travelling gypsies” had been agoal of the region-wide meeting “on the reeducation of the gypsy population” that took place in December 1958 in Ústí nad Labem.654 On the other hand, in contradiction of these declared attempts to find suitable housing for these formerly “travelling gypsies”, the local Economy and Transport Department of the KNV council in Ústí nad Labem issued awritten order to all the subordinate departments of the MNV and ONV councils on 4February 1959 as the register was taking place in which it stressed that for atemporary period, during the dispersal of such persons, it was still possible to make use of more substandard accommodation for them. The order expressly mentioned that such temporary, provisional accommodation could include the wagons used hitherto by “travelling” persons after the means of towing them had been removed.655 As we can see, in the case of two extended families that decree was applied using alegalised exception. While this was meant to be just atemporary solution, no specific time limit for this approach was set by the order. The local and district committees continued to declare that they were trying to deal with the situation of Roms living in caravans, but in practice there was minimal action on this issue. Immediately after the register, officials tried to move some of the Roms who lived in the yard of the old brickworks into the building itself, which was dilapidated. In areport to the Interior Affairs Department of the Regional National Committee Council in Ústí nad Labem in April 1959,656 the ONV was able to announce that: “with the exception of three families who live together, the gypsy persons are already housed. The remaining three families will, according to the MNV, be given housing in the space of amonth.”657 It also stated that the “housing standard of persons of gypsy origin, above all the Stojkas, is not good enough, be654 SOA Litoměřice, f. SKNV, odbor vnitřních věcí, i. č. 608, V-10 Soupis kočujících Cikánů 1959–1965– Zpráva aktivu opřevýchově cikánského obyvatelstva (18. 12. 1958, no č. j.). 655 Ibid.– Report entitled Ubytování občanů cikánského původu vypracovaná vedoucím oddělení MH (10. 8. 1959, no č. j.). 656 SOkA Louny, f. ONV Louny II, vnitř. 608, k. 332– Zpráva pro odb. pro VV rady KNV Ústí n. L., Kočující apolokočující osoby: zpráva (15. 4. 1959, č. j. 726). 657 Ibid., Zpráva odb. pro VV rady KNV Ústí n. L., Kočující apolokočující osoby (15. 4. 1959, no č. j.). The report describes the moving of nuclear families from Anna Stojková’s extended family into the brickworks building. As Ishall show below, these families did not last long in these awful conditions and returned to their caravans.
263 cause it is difficult to break their habit of leading atravelling life and to adapt them to normal life.’658 Criticising the “travelling way of life” was somewhat absurd on the part of the authorities, given that the state itself had ended their mobility by putting the family in the brickworks, in entirely unsuitable conditions in aspatially-excluded and socially-segregated environment, entirely unsuitable for families with children. Although the authorities were responsible for deepening the social marginalisation of this family, they somewhat alibistically repeated their attacks on the family’s“bad habits” left over from the period of their itinerancy which, from the authorities’ perspective, were behind the failed integration of the Roms from this family into local society. This approach once again shows that official reports from the socialist period are untrustworthy, one-sided sources. Finding suitable accommodation for “former travelling persons” became akey task of their planned reeducation and was discussed at anumber of local committee meetings, including those of the “gypsy committees”. The “Committee for dealing with the gypsy question” met on 19 May 1959 and its minutes reveal that no rapid solution to the housing situation of these families had been found. It was merely stated that the task of repairing the brickworks building had not been fulfilled, and so the Louny local committee was once again asked to resolve this question once and for all.659 The same thing was repeated at the next meeting of the committee in September 1959,660 when the MNV in Louny was once again called upon to “finally, rapidly and as amatter of priority deal with the rehousing question”661 for the family of Anna’ssister-in-law R. Stojková, who had cooperated with the authorities, and to relocate them from the brickworks to aproper flat. However, no such move took place either in the autumn of 1959 or in the subsequent year. In January 1960, members of the “Committee for the gypsy question” checked and surveyed the accommodation of the “gypsies” in the brickworks behind the barracks. As was stated in adetailed report from that check on them, “it was found on site that all the families had moved from the former brickworks into caravans. The families who previously had no caravans had since bought older ones. There are now seven caravans 658 Ibid. 659 Ibid.– Zápis ze schůze komise pro řešení cikánské otázky (19. 5. 1959, no č. j.). 660 Ibid.– Zápis zporady cikánské komise (3. 9. 1959, no č. j.). 661 Ibid.
264 on the site and all are the property of the Stojka family.” 662 The caravans stood in the courtyard acouple of metres from the temporarily-adapted interior of the old brickworks, in which the Roms had no interest in living. The report also described the caravans’ equipment and state of repair in detail: The first caravan... [where] [R.] Stojková lives, was in good order. The family had bought chrome beds and more recently leased anew, white stove.663 Everything was tidy and there were white bedspreads. The floor was scrubbed and covered with worn but clean carpets... In the second caravan there was amother with athree-day-old baby. The children from the whole camp were also concentrated there.664 As we learn from the report, “after much negotiation, electric light was arranged for these families, which considerably improved the situation of the accommodated persons of gypsy nationality.”665 However, access to drinking water had not yet been dealt with, nor had any lavatories been built. The committee also surveyed their neighbours, summing up its findings as follows: When citizens living nearby were asked what kind of difficulties they had with the citizens of gypsy nationality, there were no critical comments. They are generally satisfied with their presence in the neighbourhood. The main comment was that alavatory should be built.666 In conclusion, the “Committee for the gypsy question” once again passed aresolution that with regard to R. Stojková, whom they assessed as cooperating with the authorities and the school, it was necessary as amatter of priority to find her “adecent flat and isolate her from the others”.667 The “others” here refers to the other members of the Stojka family, who could clearly have a“bad” influence on her. Another task was to arrange with the street committees neighbouring the old brickworks 662 SOkA Louny, f. Okresní prokuratura Louny r. 1960–1965, i. č. 26, Pd 460, k. 5– Zápis ze schůze komise při radě ONV Louny (21. 1. 1960, no č. j.). 663 Author’snote: This was asolid-fuel kitchen stove with astovetop and oven, in the shape of atable. 664 Ibid. 665 Ibid. 666 Ibid. 667 Ibid.
265 that they would take on the responsibility of supervising the families’ behaviour.668 The committee did not conclude that suitable accommodation needed to be found for all those living in caravans, but just for one family that was “cooperating well”. The critical unavailability of drinking water was also not dealt with. In areport sent in February 1960 to the Internal Affairs Department at the KNV Council in Ústí nad Labem on the state of the records regarding those registered, the ONV once again points out that: There are still five families to be housed. These families are living in caravans for now. The Louny MNV is not devoting adequate care to finding housing for these families although the Committee for the Reeducation of Gypsy Persons is urging them to do so. The measures taken by the ONV Council have also not met with results. The attention of the district prosecutor has been drawn to the situation. Recently, gypsy persons have been committing theft and moral offences, which is caused by the fact that the MNV has not managed to house them properly.669 The repeated argument used by the Louny MNV as to why the Stojkas’ housing had not yet been dealt with was that there were not enough flats free. From areport by the committee of the district prosecutor, however, we can see that during this same time other Romani families (nonVlax, living outside the brickworks) had been given “four flats already […] and yet not asingle case from the Stojkas has been dealt with.”670 The Roms were not moved out of the old brickworks during the following year, either. The urgency of dealing with their totally substandard housing and lack of basic amenities and equipment, as well as the attempts to deal with this, gradually stopped being mentioned in the reports of the ONVs and MNVs. From time to time the problem reappeared in the reports of the ONV and MNV in Louny and was repeatedly dealt with by the district prosecutor and the Regional National Committee, but nothing changed in subsequent years. Areport from the Department for Interior Affairs of the Louny ONV for the KNV in February 1962 once again admitted that amain shortcoming of the situation in the district 668 Ibid. 669 SOkA Louny, f. ONV Louny II, vnitř. 608, k. 332, Pro odb. pro VV KNV Ústí n.L.– Zpráva ostavu evidence osob vzatých do soupisu podle zák. 74/1958 (24. 2. 1960, č. j. vnitř. 99/1960). 670 SOkA Louny, f. Okresní prokuratura Louny r. 1960–1965, i. č. 26, Pd 460, k. 5– Zápis schůze komise pro občany cikánské národnosti na ONV Louny (24. 2. 1960, č. j. 4/60).
272 according to the authorities, was not just because of the Roms’ poor working habits, frequent job-hopping and avoidance of manual labour, but also because some enterprises refused to employ these persons.690 Over the course of afew years, however, Roms from the Stojka family gradually found positions that suited them (for example, in ameat-packing factory) and so in reports from the early 1970s there is also praise for individuals’ good working habits. The ONV documents also allow us to detect the specific steps leading to the assimilation of these Roms. The way in which the local authorities treated the oldest woman in the Stojka family, Anna Stojková (*1902), is redolent of social engineering. Areport from ameeting of the gypsy committee in September 1959 mentioned that: “All the members of the committee agree that as long as Anna Stojková has any influence on the family, the reeducation of the whole family will be difficult.”691 Anna Stojková was afigure of authority for her whole family, and for this reason was perceived by the employees of the committees as abrake on their assimilation efforts. Afew months later, according to another document, “R. Stojková and old Anna Stojková were taken off to Bukov for treatment”.692 Given that Bukov was apsychiatric hospital, it is not clear whether Anna Stojková and her daughter-in-law were placed there voluntarily, on the basis of actual psychiatric problems, or whether they were put there at the instigation of the state authorities to remove Anna from her family or punish her for her behaviour. However unlikely this solution may seem from today’sviewpoint, during the period in question this possibility was not infrequently used for dealing with people who posed aproblem to the regime. At any rate, the committee exploited her hospitalisation to try and influence her son, born in 1943, who had already once been taken to hospital but who had escaped with the aid of old Stojková. The committee passed aresolution that the current situation, when Anna Stojková was away being treated, should be used to ensure an operation on the boy’scrippled leg in the hospital.”693 The committee also intended to exploit the hospitalisation of Anna’s daughter-in-law, R. Stojková, to take her children into children’shomes. 690 SOkA Louny, f.ONV Louny II, vnitř. 608, k. 332– Zápis ze schůze odboru pracovních sil, zdravotnictví asociálního zabezpečení ONV Louny (20. 2. 1960, no č. j.). 691 Ibid.– Zápis zporady cikánské komise (3. 9. 1959, no č. j.) 692 Ibid. 693 Ibid.
273 The agenda of deregistration from the register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons People put on the register in February 1959 and subsequently held in the records of the state authorities were allowed to apply for deregistration. After being successfully taken off the register, the measures of Act no. 74/1958 ceased to relate to the persons in question and they were able to move house without requesting permission. Many made use of this option, but their requests for deregistration were not always granted: the authorities took into account the opinion of the state enterprise where the person worked, the local committee, and sometimes of other bodies.694 The Louny ONV, in its records of people on the register, continued to distinguish thoroughly between showmen and persons of “gypsy origin”, continuing to label them in pencil, on the basis of their ethnicity, on their register document and other records as “svět.” (světský) or “cik.” (cikán). The study of this data from the relevant archives brings me to the conclusion that officials also treated the two groups differently when it came to taking people off the register.695 From the spring of 1962, only people registered in Louny in the category “gypsies” were still registered. All the “showmen” from Louny had had their deregistration approved. All the people still registered and remaining in the category of “gypsies” were from the Stojka family (as of 20 February 1963 there were 30 persons). Those registered could also be deregistered due to their having relocated to another district. For this, however, the Interior Affairs Department of the District Committee had to give its approval– and as the documentation shows, these departments always refused Romani families’ requests to move, with the exception of asingle case in which ason moved in order to be with his parents in another district. From the register archives it can be seen that in the case of families and individuals from the “showmen” category, moving to another district was allowed. It was not until 1964 that the Louny ONV approved the removal of the first Lovara in Louny from the register. Of the 33 registered members of the Stojka family, 25 were taken off the register between April and August 1964 for the reason that they lived and worked permanently in Louny. At that time, however, the men of the Stojka family were already looking for work outside the district, which the authorities knew about, but this fact was not included in the argumentation put forward for 694 Zapletal, “Přístup totalitního státu”, 58. 695 Hajská, “Forced settlement”, 359.
274 their possible removal from the register. Four people were allowed to be taken off the register in 1968. The last nuclear family, that of Anna Stojková’syoungest daughter, was still officially registered as living in the former brickworks in January 1969 when, as the last such family in the district, they were officially taken off the register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons. 696 Roms from Žatec were forced to remain on the register for asimilarly long time. Of 25 Roms from the Stojka–Horvát families for whom we have the date on which they were removed from the register, three people were taken off in 1963, another eight people in 1964, and 14 people not until 1966.697 The family of Antonín Horvát, for example, had its request to be taken off the register rejected several times. The first application was refused by the ONV in Louny in November 1962, the reason given being that: “It has been found that the work habits and behaviour of you and your family are not such as to allow us to meet your request for deregistration.”698 Another rejection followed in October 1963, when the District Committee for the Protection of Public Order stated that: “The family has not yet been sufficiently reeducated to fulfil all the conditions for deregistration. There is even adanger that after being deregistered they might return to atravelling lifestyle.“699 At the time these deregistration requests were made, the family still lived in acaravan by the river Ohře in the place known as Ostrov. This may have been one of the reasons for their rejection, although it was not directly stated. The family was not deregistered until the following year, in April 1964, when they had already moved into aflat in the centre of town.700 These cases show that living in covered wagons or caravans was asignificant factor that could prevent afamily from being taken off the register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons. Most Lovara, whether in Žatec or Louny, were taken off the register only after they had moved into normal housing. Here it is worth pointing out that almost all members of the families in question left their place of residence soon after they were deregistered and started to look for work and housing outside 696 SOkA Louny, f. ONV Louny II, vnitř. 608, k. 331– Rozhodnutí (3. 1. 1969, č. j. 99/69). Sent to J. Lakatošová at the address “Louny– brickworks”. 697 SOkA Louny, f. ONV Louny II, vnitř. 608, k. 331. 698 Ibid.– Vyjádření ONV kžádosti A. Horváta ovyjmutí ze soupisu podle zák. 74/1958– zamítnutí (14. 11. 1962, č. j. 423/65–4). 699 Ibid.– Refusal (2. 10. 1963, č. j. 3511/63). 700 Ibid.– Approval (21. 4. 1964, no č. j.).
275 the district of Louny, which had been foisted on them as alocation by bureaucrats at the time of their register. This, however, often brought atemporary return to their living in caravans until they found housing that appealed to them. Leaving the caravans It is not clear when the old brickworks in Louny was finally abandoned by the Roms. Berci remembers that alarge part of the family moved into adetached house close to the Louny railway station, where some lived inside the house while two of his uncles brought their caravans into the spacious yard and carried on living in them with their families. According to the municipal committee’sevidence,701 the move must have taken place at the latest before June 1963, which is the date of Anna Stojková’sdeath, and she lived in the house. Berci says the death of his grandmother Anna Stojková was the impetus for the entire family to leave Louny. The first family members clearly left after the three nuclear families of Berci Stojka’suncles were taken off the register in April 1964. The other families seem to have followed them. Berci Stojka has described how, after being taken off the register, his uncles worked in land improvement and ditch-digging, moving around according to their place of work to Odolená Voda, Valdice and other municipalities, until at the end of the 1960s they moved to Prague. Leaving Louny paradoxically meant atemporary return to spatial mobility, since the families doing land improvement work moved from one workplace to another by caravan, which they used tractors to tow to the destination where they were to work. They did so at atime when moving about in caravans was banned– but this type of work was alegal exception. Berci remembers that the Stojka family bought ahouse in Hostivař, on the outskirts of Prague, in the late 1960s for which they jointly took out and then repaid aloan. “We still had three caravans in Hostivař. When we moved into our house, however, we sold the caravans.”702 701 SOkA Louny, f. MěNV Louny, i. č. 100 – Evidence obyvatelstva cikánské národnosti vLounech.– This typewritten list of “citizens of gypsy nationality” in Louny as of 1 July 1961 still gives the address of the old brickworks for all the Lovara. In the case of two families this was later crossed out (with no date) and an address added that is close to Louny railway station, corresponding to Berci’slocalisation of their later residence. 702 Personal recording of Berci (*1949) by the author made on 18 December 2018 in Louny, Czech Republic.
276 In this new house the family then managed to create the sort of life they wanted, and their voluntary abandonment of spatial mobility and living in covered wagons was part of that. The impact of the register under Act. No. 74/1958 on Roms in Louny and Žatec The implementation of Act no. 74/1958 had an undoubted impact on both branches of the Stojka family living in Louny and Žatec. They were entered on the register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons and, for periods raging from five to 10 years, were limited in their mobility and faced various assimilatory instruments and measures. There was also the confiscation of their property when their horses were taken from them without compensation, something that was perceived by the Roms as apainful interference with their lives. As Ihave shown above, the underestimated number of horses for which seizure was indicated on the register suggests that the Roms may have been defrauded, or their property may have been undervalued by the state authorities. As we have seen, despite many years of declarations from authorities on several levels that they would try to find suitable housing for the Stojka family, in early 1963 the family had to deal with its inadequate housing in the old brickworks on its own by buying ahouse together. Several years later the family bought ahouse in the Hostivař suburb of Prague the same way, by taking out aloan. This says something about the agency of these Roms: while they had no choice but to stay in their caravans in designated places in the Louny district for the period that they were on the register, they still successfully managed to resist assimilation attempts. At the sites allotted to them, they preferred to keep living in their own wagons rather than in the dilapidated building into which officials tried to make them move. They managed to deal with the unavailability of water and food by creating functional relationships with their neighbours and even with the soldiers from the barracks, who brought them food. After they were deregistered, they then managed to find their own housing, to leave Louny and Žatec where they had lived unwillingly for years, and to find themselves legal livelihoods in Prague of their own choice. The authorities who registered them in Louny and Žatec never managed to meet the requirements established by law, with the exception of its restrictions on the registered persons. They allowed the Roms (espe-
277 cially in Louny) to live in atotally unsuitable place. Instead of the basic sanitation and integration into society that the authorities were meant to provide, they instead concentrated on the Roms’ “backward way of life” and how to change it.
278 Štefan Stojka, Sr. and his family with his horse and wagon in Trenčín, around 1955 or 1956.
279 Part 7: Conclusions Ihave focused in this book on the life stories of the Stojka family which, towards the end of the 19th century, gained domicile in the municipality of Trenčianska Teplá. Ipieced together the family history over several generations on the basis of various fragmentary records from all over Czechoslovakia, which Ithen tried to connect into alarger, interrelated whole. As far as possible, Itried to connect some of the events Icame across in the records with historical facts and the policies of the time. Using asingle family with many branches, piecing together their story from alarge quantity of archival and ethnographic material, Ihave described the form of these inhabitants’ mobility and territorial anchoring, identifying them as Vlax Roms from the Lovara group who were labelled by the state bodies of the time as “gypsies” or “gypsy vagabonds/travelling gypsies”. The broad chronological sweep of this book, from the late 19th century to the late 1960s, means that it contributes acomprehensive view of their lives across highly diverse political regimes and changing socioeconomic conditions. Ishall try to divide my conclusions from the wealth of archival material and interviews presented in this book into several interconnected levels. The diachronically-ordered chapters have already contained partial conclusions for individual periods, and so I shall now try to briefly summarise them and to formulate conclusions that concern the main themes of the book. These are: the paths taken by the families in question; the historical circumstances and contexts connected with the Lovara community on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia; general thoughts about the debate on spatial mobility and territorial anchoring; and, last but not least, the effect of official state measures aimed at the individuals and families falling into the category of “travelling gypsies”
280 which were connected with the paternalistic approach of the state and with the entrenched racial prejudices towards Roms in Czechoslovak society generally. 7.1 The interdisciplinary approach, combination of methods, broad spectrum of sources and other innovative aspects My book offers acontinual, dense portrayal of one Lovara family over several decades across Czechoslovak territory, created by combining various sources. It is in their combination and in the concurrent choice of an interdisciplinary approach that Isee an enriching, innovative element here that could inspire future researchers. Previously, the historical studies focusing on the Czech or Slovak Vlax Roms and specifically on the Lovara703 were based largely on archival material just from asingle district. The authors did not place such microstudies in the larger biographical context of the individuals and did not combine sources from various localities and regions about them. Their authors did not have aparticular family and its fate at the centre of their interest, but were focused more on the relationship between local governments or central bodies towards Roms living in acertain area and how they dealt with “problems resulting from coexistence”. Itend to conclude that these historians may have been deterred from undertaking amore continuous tracing of Vlax families’ trajectories by the very fact that the Lovara were identified as “travelling” families in “permanent motion”, without particularly great ties to any one place. The archival sources regarding their lives were, therefore, perceived as scattered over alarge number of regional archives, the assumption being that these Roms could have moved practically “anywhere”. The challenge posed by such abroadly-conceived study lies not just in the logistics of the research, but also in the fact that it may seem difficult to continuously follow the spatial routes taken. As my study shows, however, it is possible to combine information from various regional archives to achieve such aresult. Iarrived at various methodological innovations when writing this book. An important methodological enrichment of historical research is the integration of socioanthropological methods, above all entering 703 E.g. Černý, “Lovárové”; Pavelčíková, “Příchod olašských Romů”; Rastislav Pivoň, “Krealizácii zákona č. 74/1958 Zb. otrvalom usídlení kočujúcich osôb na území Veľkej Bratislavy”. Studia Ethnologica Pragensia, no. 1 (2018): 30–46; Pivoň, “Zákon č. 74”.
281 data for individuals into agenealogical diagram and, during archival research, looking for records of individuals and families according to surname and for further personal data on these people. An example of partial innovation is my research into how Lovara territorial anchoring took place. Like other researchers, in determining this variable Ifocused mainly on where the members of the families in question were officially domiciled. This says something about the situation of aparticular family or community in relation to the municipality and often played an important role in determining the (im)possibility of their staying more permanently or repeatedly in aparticular place. The ties of Roms to the community may also be researched on the basis of other criteria such as their actual residence and its length as recorded by the authorities, amunicipality given as the birthplace of more than one family member, and above all, the fact of owning property, which is best when it is repeatedly recorded officially. Acontinually-given precise address (including house number) may also indicate long-term residence or abase in aparticular municipality– if not through actual ownership, then through renting. These ways of being territorially anchored then need to be researched in combination with the spatial mobility motivated by the performance of aprofession or by social ties. Another undoubted methodological enrichment that produces afundamental shift in the picture of Lovara life in Czechoslovakia is the following of such actors’ own perspectives, on the one hand, and the perspective of the state administration, on the other. These perspectives are essentially fairly opposed to each other, providing varied and, on anumber of points, mutually antagonistic interpretations of various historical events. Many researchers writing about Roms on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia focus mostly on the perspective of the state. Although these authors try to objectively justify the motivation of the Roms’ actions, they rarely present acomprehensive picture of the Romani perspective. Including the actors’ perspective of the Roms themselves is something Iconsider to be afundamental shift that has so far been entirely absent from the literature on this geographical territory and from the debate on “travelling” Roms. The fact that Ihave used not just data from archival research, but also analyses of ethnographic narratives, witness testimonies concerning the wartime genocide against the Roms and interviews made on the basis of oral history methods means that adynamic, fluid picture of the subject in question has been created here. My book also enriches research into the history of the Roms. During my gradual focus on the different historical events that involved the
288 The post-war period: Facing attempts at forced sedentarisation by state bodies After the death of Zaga Stojková, her successors were symbolically led by her daughter-in-law Anna Stojková, née Lakatošová. After the Roms were expelled from Trenčianska Teplá they returned with their horsedrawn wagons to the Czech lands. However, they did not come as inexperienced migrants, but were returning to the places around which they had travelled in the 1930s. After an initial phase of relatively extensive territorial mobility around the whole Bohemian part of the republic, their routes gradually narrowed to the northern Bohemian area, especially the districts of Louny, Žatec and the surrounding area. During the period in question, few Lovara led an “itinerant” way of life. In most cases, as with the Stojkas, this was the result of their wartime and postwar pauperisation and their attempt to find abetter livelihood than the ones offered them by the wartorn Slovak countryside. The last Lovara to leave Trenčianska Teplá was the nuclear family of Štefan Stojka, Sr. who, after losing lawsuits seeking compensation for the destruction of his property, set out at the end of the 1940s with his horse and cart to North Moravia, where he tried to find alivelihood and aplace where he and his family might stay. In the mid-1950s, however, he returned for unknown reasons with his wife and children to Trenčianska Teplá. First, they camped in their wagon on the site of their former house, which by then had been completely razed to the ground. Štefan continued to try and earn aliving as acollector of various things with his horse-drawn cart, but in 1959 his horse was confiscated. At approximately the same time after pressure was put on the local authorities by local non-Romani residents, his family was moved to amore distant place in the village, where the MNV built them acottage. Nevertheless, Štefan managed to purchase another horse and to drive round the neighbourhood to alimited extent, collecting things. Štefan died in Trenčianska Teplá in January 1969 in his covered wagon and in arelatively impoverished social situation. After the death of both parents, his children left the village and it is not known where they went. During the 1950s, Romani families moving around in horse-drawn wagons or in other ways became the target of attempts by state bodies to sedentarise and employ them. For the whole of the 1950s, such Roms, who were not particularly numerous, but were highly visible, travelled with horses and carts facing various police checks, attempts to seize their horses and, above all, attempts to employ them and other pressures to
289 get them to leave their “travelling” way of life, which came to represent ever more clearly apossible escape from the paternalistic approach of the state. By moving to other regions in the first half of the 1950s, the Lovara tried to resist the forcible attempts to end their mobility, to reeducate them and the other forms of social engineering by state bodies which targeted them. From the early 1950s, there were repeated attempts at the forced settlement of these Roms, together with forced employment in various economic and agricultural projects. When “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons were being registered in February 1959, the majority of Lovara living in the Czech lands had already been forcibly (or in some cases probably voluntarily) sedentarised in acertain place. The register led to the forced confirmation of such territorial ties and prohibited them from leaving their forced residences, aban that for the individual families lasted for several years until the district committees allowed them to be taken off the register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons. The settling of the Stojka family in the late 1950s In the second half of the 1950s, one Stojka family branch was forcibly settled by the river Ohře in Žatec, where they were allowed to stay in their covered wagons. The other branch of the family was forcibly placed, also in their covered wagons and caravans, in the former brickworks in Louny, in inhospitable conditions with no job opportunities or basic amenities for adignified life, such as water, electricity, toilets and so on. In both localities the Roms were entered on the register under Act no. 74/1958 and for that reason were forced to stay there for years. During the register they were defrauded of their property when their horses were taken from them with no compensation, which was seen by the Roms themselves as apainful incursion into their lives. The law on the permanent settlement of “travelling persons” had an undoubted impact on both branches of the Stojka family, whose members were in subsequent years kept on the register of “travelling” and “semi-travelling” persons. While they were registered they were limited in their mobility and had to face various assimilatory instruments and measures from the municipal, district and regional administrations without the issue of their housing being dealt with. Paradoxically, by limiting their movement and forcing them to settle in localities where it was not possible to gain dignified housing and employment, the administrations
290 deepened the social marginalisation of these Roms and also contributed to asharp rise in their criminal behaviour. The interventions and checks by representatives of the authorities and security forces are remembered by witnesses to this day with great bitterness, and it is clear that if the implementation of Act no. 74/1958 in these concrete cases had any impact, it chiefly contributed to the creation of barriers and distrust between the Lovara and representatives of the majority society. 7.3 The position of Roms in society: The paternalism of the state, anti-gypsy policies and the agency of Roms Ihave tried to give space in the different parts of this book (with the exception of the chapter covering the earliest period) to two different perspectives: the description of events according to state records on the one hand, and the actors’ perspective of the Roms on the other hand. As Ihave already mentioned, these two perspectives provide fairly contradictory explanations of the events described as they embody mutually antagonistic values. While from the outside point of view the Lovara, as “travelling gypsies”, were perceived as agroup situated on the very edge of society, the Lovara perceived themselves as the most prestigiously-situated group, followed by the non-Vlax Roms (Rumungri) and non-Roms (Gadjos) in much lower positions. The Lovara narrative describes the historical line of their movement around the former Czechoslovakia as an attempt to find their own space, despite the limitations and hurdles with which they were met on an almost daily basis. The witnesses generally did not think about the question of whether their parents and relatives, in various historical periods, had wanted to adapt to and fulfil the demands of the majority society, but rather thought about how they could defend their position in such away as to main their own moral integrity and values, as far as possible while minimalising conflicts with their surroundings. From their point of view, the surrounding society was described as an environment that was none too accommodating and, at the same time, potentially threatening, dangerous to Roms in many ways, for which they tried to be permanently prepared. Reflecting on the Romani testimonies and their perception of the outside society’sapproach towards them, what emerges clearly are examples of various segregation mechanisms and displays of the anti-gypsy measures which Roms across time have had to face almost continuously. Anumber of these acts are
291 evidenced by records in the archives, but their aim was differently interpreted there (for example, the attempts to reeducate Romani children by taking them into children’shomes were described as an attempt to take the children on “holiday”, and so on). This book presents the concretisation in detail of the partial but interconnected results of such “anti-gypsy” policies and the stereotypical approach to Roms that was entrenched in society in general (or in accordance with the concept of the time, the approach to “gypsies”), which can both be summarised under the heading of antigypsyism. Ireveal herein its local-level repercussions for the daily life of the Lovara, more or less, in the Czech lands and Slovakia over along period of time. However, it should be stressed that antigypsyism, as an umbrella concept describing prejudicial, racist and discriminatory attitudes toward Roms, cannot be perceived as ahomogenous, uniform factor. On the contrary, in various periods of history it involved various forms of criminalisation and marginalisation, as well as various conceptions of “gypsies”. With regard to the state system, it is possible to observe the continuous view of “travelling gypsies” across various regimes, state formations and geographical areas. They were perceived throughout the period in question as the perpetrators of various offences and as asecurity risk to the autochthonous population. At various times they were also labelled using subhuman categories such as “packs” and “hordes”, the “waves” and “floods” of which local populations had to face. Their itinerancy was perceived as innate and the tendency towards it as ceaseless, and so the state, during various historical periods, tried to limit it or confront it using various measures. After the coming of communism, the state took what might be described as aheavily paternalistic approach, aimed at the violent assimilation of “travelling” people that resulted in Roms having to face pressure from local functionaries and other politically-active people to get rid of their “old customs”, in other words, to face their managed acculturation. It is this that the Lovara tried, mostly successfully, to defy. The researcher Eva Thurner has stated that as aresult of their “host society” subjecting them to disdain and stigmatisation for many years, the Roms have ignored its rules, thereby giving up on trying to be accepted by the majority society and to integrate into it.708 In the context of the material in this book, Iconclude that their continuous experience of repression, segregation mechanisms and (above all in the 1950s) paternalistic attempts at social engineering which often included 708 Thurner, “Bez státní příslušnosti”, 67–68.
292 direct displays of ethnic or racial discrimination as well as the curtailment of their basic human rights and freedoms mean the Lovaras’ lack of trust when it comes to the world of non-Roms is entirely legitimate, whether we are discussing the state, local authorities, or individual non-Roms. In the story of the Stojka family as described above, the Roms’ active approach to trying to resolve their situations themselves is something that runs throughout the book as apowerful motif. Astrong position as an actor can be seen in the case of Štefan Stojka, Sr., always searching for and choosing various ways of improving and dealing with his and his family’ssituation without having to wait for the local authorities to come up with something. The highly active approach of the Roms is also described at the very end of this story in the 1960s when, despite local administrations declaring that they would deal with the Roms’ housing situation, the Roms finally took care of their own housing by buying adetached house in Louny. An active approach and an attempt to find asolution also helped them in the process of deregistration, leaving Louny, and subsequently buying their own house in Prague. All these partial probes into and examples from the life of the Lovara also point to another important reality. There is aneed to distinguish between the approaches and subsequent practices of the various state bodies, which differed very considerably in the case of the central, regional and local administrations, and indeed across the regions (above all between the Czech lands and Slovakia). For various periods of history, Igathered evidence on the highly inconsistent or notably diverse approaches to the implementation and enforcement of existing legislation and on the conflicting interests these components of the state had. In practice, primarily at the local level, state paternalism and social engineering could depend on the activity of afew individuals. This book reveals the cracks in the function of state policy in practice instead of just criticising it as apowerful actor, revealing how the Lovara managed to find those cracks and optimise their situation as aresult.
Fig. 1: The farm at Horní Stromka in the Prague suburb of Královské Vinohrady, where in 1913 the family of František Stojka was registered as living, and where during approximately the same period the Romani family of Jan Schubert also lived. Appendix
Fig. 2: Hand-drawn map of “gypsy shacks” in Dobrá near Trenčianska Teplá, 1936. Fig: 3: Census form for the house at no. 273, Trenčianska Teplá, from the 1930 census.
Fig. 4: The regulation of the Teplička stream in Trenčianska Teplá, 1930s. In the background on the right-hand side the gable of Štefan Stojka’s house is visible. Fig. 5: Teplická street in Trenčianska Teplá in the interwar period. The photograph is taken from the quarry, on the hillside above the site of Štefan Stojka’s house.
Fig. 6: Photograph of a young woman from Štefan Stojka’s family, first name unrecorded, original description by the author: “Gypsy Stojková, 1950”. The photo was taken in the surroundings of Trenčianska Teplá. Fig. 7: Štefan Stojka’s family in a meadow near Trenčianska Teplá. The photograph shows Štefan Stojka, Sr., his wife Kristína and their youngest children, and is dated by the author: 1955.
Fig. 8: Štefan Stojka, Sr. on his wagon in Trenčianska Teplá. In the background is the half-built house of another owner. Mid-1960s.
Fig. 17: A provisory “gypsy identity card” of the sort that were issued by the local national committee (ONV) in Lovosice in 1952 to all Roms camping on the banks of the river Elbe, in order to keep records of them. The photographs, which were taken without any legal basis, were stuck on the back of the documents from a dentistry card index.
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