Jozef Chrena

“There were also state security members present, so-called kontráši (slang expression for members of military counter-intelligence) and we pulled their leg a bit. One of my jokes almost didn’t turn out. They were spying all the time. Once there was a new kontráš – coming from the east – who was geared towards me one night. He wanted me to prove my identity when I stopped for one beer after service one summer evening. He asked me to show him my identity card. However, I knew who he was, so I didn’t want to give it to him. I was still his target so I decide to play a little with him. I went to him and said: ‘Listen, you are spying on me, I come from here, from Moravský Svätý Ján, but before I came here, there was some guy asking me in weak German language how to get to Austrian borders.’ He said: ‘And what did you tell him?’ ‘I showed him, because you picked on me who lives here since childhood and you miss many diversionists!’ ‘And which way did he run?’ he asked me. ‘Well, he ran this way, towards the borders.’ This kontráš had to be some kind of fanatic, as he started running and he immediately called his unit through walkie-talkie. Other men were laughing: ‘What a lesson you gave him!’ We kidding together with my friend, he was there as well. But as I came home and got to bed, suddenly someone rang the bell. There was a commander of the border guard asking me how the diversionist looked like. That was time when I realized it wasn’t fun anymore; somehow I overplayed my hand. Well, I had to play on as I couldn’t take it back. I lay back down to bed, but in about an hour there was some major from Malacky with our commander and they were suspecting me of making the whole story up. They said they were on alert from Devín to Lanžhot and that they mobilized everything. They asked me to describe all I knew once again. They kept coming to talk to me until morning, when some colonel from Bratislava came. He interrogated me as well and I knew I had to insist on my made up version since nobody could prove if some man really asked me about the way or not. So I insisted on my claims although it seemed to be endless. Yet in two days they called off the emergency service and somehow it calmed down. This happened approximately half year – four or five months – before the November 1989, before the revolution.”

“I was so enthusiastic about building up back then Czecho-Slovakia just to be able to catch up with Austria. We even filled in some questionnaire: ‘When do you think we might be able to catch up with Austria? In one year, in three, five or seven years?’ Well, we thought seven years was too long. ‘By that time we surely pass them!’ So I wrote we would catch up with them in three years.”

“Once I went to paint to Devín, to Devín Castle. It was truly grotesque as they kept driving me out from there. I went to the top of the castle and I wanted to paint panorama to Morava, Danube and there would be also a little part of Austrian side. But a soldier came to me and said I had to turn my stand and paint only the Slovak side of the country. I was really angry! I promised him to do as he said; I began to paint only the Slovak side but when he left, of course I painted also the Austrian part. This kind of meaningless orders they had!”