Gabriela Borošová

* 1962

  • „They were among them, because my grandmother had a son at that time. He was only two weeks old and they actually had to leave their house and go somewhere. It was a village called Koprivnica, it was in the Bardejov district. And grandfather found out that some family she recommended that there was a family there that would take them in. So at that time, I know, my mother mentioned that even then they wanted grandfather to enlist in the war, but that he hid somewhere because he had three small four little children, and he wouldn't know how to leave his grandmother alone, as if he somehow managed to avoid it. And the village of Koprivnica was about 25 km away from Stropkovo. And my mother mentioned that grandfather went there twice and that at first he carried feed for the animals, chickens, cows, that is, he had to deliver them there as if to the house, but he turned around twice. Hay and all that so that they would actually have something to live on. Well, they were already leaving with that He took the family, the two-week-old little brother Miško was in the car. My mother was 10 years old at the time and she had an older brother who was twelve years old, so they followed the wagon on foot, and she remembers that it rained terribly, that it was terribly wet at that time, that they had to cross the Ondava River, that they almost drowned because such the rush came when they had killed a pig, which was also loaded. Like half a pig, hey, like they have something to eat. That the water took it away from them.“

  • „Even when I was older, I was about 15 years old, and I always went there on vacation. And I fell in love with a boy. And that's what my mother told me only now, when we talked about it, that my grandfather was terribly unhappy about it because he said that the boy's father was one of the main agitators or promoters of that collectivization. And he says that these were people who basically had nothing and rose to the top precisely because they behaved the way they did .How was it that grandfather was very unhappy that I found a friend like this, hey. So I can't tell you anything about it. And you don't know in which year they entered, or if they resisted the entry for a longer period of time? Um, I don't know, I just know what I already mentioned, that grandma threw herself on the ground with her chest, that they won't take that chest away from her. That they bought it for themselves and now it's like it's being taken away from them. As they experienced the collectivization quite hard. Although then I remember that my grandfather worked at the cooperative until his retirement. He was basically still working there. As they probably got used to after that, there was nothing else left for them. And don't you know, even before they entered there, they also had to take away the contingents? Yes. I know this, that my mother said that they were still going and that they were still increasing the quotas that they had to give. But how much I don't know. As there they had wheat and milk, I remember that milk, hey, also meat. When they killed the pig, they also had to give something from it. So they mentioned this.“

  • „We had to have an invitation, that was the first thing they gave us. Then we had to have a foreign exchange promise that we had foreign exchange coverage. So our mother-in-law took care of it. I'll say it straight away. It was taken care of in Rožňava. And then we went to Prague a week before I left, I almost fell on my ass, because it was a long line at the Swiss embassy. You had to stand there for two days We needed a transit visa through Austria. My husband went to the Austrian embassy to arrange it. But it was unbelievable I had a very bad experience. When we left, we went through Vienna. It was like a customs office I will never forget it, it was so humiliating. We had to open the suitcases and with a mallet they were throwing all the things in the suitcase at us to see if we had anything in there. Well, I... And that was already 89, but summer, hey, June in 89. So then I felt incredibly humiliated, and then I actually realized that it wasn't right, hey. And then when I saw what was on the other side. We were always taught in school that raging capitalism. So I said that we are making it worse. One probably had to see it to understand it. Well, then we were there for a month. I basically left two small children here, hey, for the test of how to look. Not for the test, for the visit, as they live. And that's when my eyes actually opened.“

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Revúca, 19.04.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 02:10:04
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th century
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Vždy sme sa učili o zahnívajúcom kapitalizme západu, vo Švajčiarsku sa mi otvorili oči

Gabriela Borošová during EYD recording in 2023
Gabriela Borošová during EYD recording in 2023
photo: Photo by Dominik Janovský

Gabriela Borošová was born on March 3, 1962 in Košice to parents Mária and Jozef Sabolovec. After the outbreak of the Carpathian-Duklian operation, Mária had to leave home with her parents and siblings. Their house was razed to the ground by a bomb, so Mária and brother Štefan were placed in foster families for a year. Mária was not accepted for her first job because her parents refused to join the cooperative. She traveled to Ostrava for work, where she met her future husband Jozef. They got married in 1957. After three years, they returned to Slovakia and their son Jozef was born. In 1962, they moved to Košice, where Gabriela was born. After the invasion of the occupation troops, the father was called up as a soldier in the reserve. Between 1968 and 1977, Gabriela graduated from elementary school. Despite her excellent results, she was not admitted to the gymnasium because of her religion, but only to the Secondary Industrial School of Chemistry in Humenné. As a high school student, she perceived political propaganda. In 1981, she began studying industrial furnaces at the Technical University in Košice. There she met her future husband Štefan. In 1984, she got married and gave birth to a son, Kamil. In 1985, she finished university and she and her husband got a job at the Slovak magnesite plant in Jelšava. Over time, they got an apartment in Revúca and in 1988 their daughter Andrea was born. In the summer of 1989, they could travel to Lucerne, Switzerland, to visit their family, but without their children. Štefan was involved during the revolution. Gabriela was on maternity leave at the time. After returning to work, she worked in a technological position, after completing her studies, she worked as the head of the financial department. In 2010, she was dismissed. She took a nursing course, traveled to Austria for work. After her return, she put the nursing service facility into operation after reconstruction. In 2023, she worked there for the twelfth year.