Photographies were taken during the shooting of the film ROOTS. I decided to search for my ROOTS and to reflect the situation of Roma people during the second world war.
My great-grandfather participated in the resistance movement in 1944 and suffered a cruel loss of beloved ones. His six-member family including 2 months baby was killed by German Haimatschutz in village Turček in Central Slovakia. During this time, he was in a concentration camp in Dubnica nad Váhom.
In the year 1944 participants of the war were massively killed. Because there has been an accusation, that Roma people cooperated or have been a part of Slovak national uprising, over 1400 Roma people were executed.
Together with my film-crew, we visited Roma settlements and villages were the war resistance took part in the past.
Margita Bartošová lives in Čierny Balog. She remembers tragedies that happened to Roma people in her village. Women with children were burnt down in shalet and men were shot. She had to hide in the woods together with Roma people from the village. Her most powerful memory from war is a hurt German soldier, who asked his friend to shoot him. Mrs. Bartošová comes from a family of musicians. Until today she comes to sing at different concerts in central Slovakia. At the photo, she performs traditional Roma song together with her grand-grand son at the court of her house.
Elena Berkyová was born in Dolná Bzová, in 1944 her father and a grandfather was shot by Germans. Shortly after that, she has seen, how they burnt down her village. The only person who could save them was a priest. However, he refused to help. The same priest had to marry her because he didn´t give her permission to marry in a different village. Until now, she wakes up in the night and can´t stop to think about, what happened that day, when Germans took her family to death.
I still continue searching the roots and clarifying what happened to Roma people in 1944 in the area of Slovak Republic. This is the last chance to capture those stories and to preserve them for the next generations as a heroic proof of people who were able to come together without looking at ethnic differences and to fight against the evil.