Imrich Gallik

Redactor: “You have mentioned that your German fellow citizens were leaving the country during the war maybe to save themselves. And your family, did they stay?” “You know, we had been promised to get a car from military and to be driven to Czech part of the republic. Thus we arrived in Kežmarok with our horses; it was in the time of evacuation, in December 1944. However, the German military was so debilitated that they had no cars, absolutely nothing, but the most important thing was that my mum met Mrs. Fabrinská from gamekeeper‘s lodge and she asked her, ‘Mrs. Galliková, what are you doing here?’ And my mum told her everything. Then, she replied, ‘Don’t go anywhere; come to us, to our lodge.’ And we really went to their lodge in a forest. We brought all our things there, our stuff, our horses, everything we had was in their lodge. Then, our house in the village was destroyed, windows broken, roof wrecked. It was something horrible. She really saved us from all those horrors. If we had gone there, we would have lost everything and who knows maybe we even wouldn’t have survived.”

“Some men were sent to work in a forest, some got to workrooms. I got to the joiner’s workroom in Mizurskaja. From Nuzal to Mizurskaja it was about five kilometres and we used to go on foot to work, yes, on foot. In the morning we got 300 g of bread and some soup and we worked till four or five without lunch. Only after coming back we could have dinner, which consisted of 300 g of bread with fish and some tea. And every day ran this way.”

“I was offered to submit an application. I worked as a chief and a master craftsman, these were two positions for one person, yes, and there were only ten employees. They trusted me and allowed me to submit an application to join the party. Then, I decided to do so and I filed the application. I was given some forms and I filled them, I responded to all questions, but when they read that I had been a member of Hitlerjugend, they immediately responded. They called me there and told me that I couldn’t be accepted as I had belonged to them.”

“When we had a free day, we could go to see the others, but they always found some work for us. I can mention the situation when we came from work and we were about ten men in a room, where we had plank-beds and so many bedbugs and lice, I haven’t told you about it yet. At the beginning, they disinfected our clothes from lice and eliminated the lice from our skin. You know, those lice were devouring us, it was something horrible. And every morning we saw bedbugs flying down from attic and suddenly there were lots of them everywhere. Those lice and bedbugs dogged us everywhere.”

“In Sanok there were ten freight cars prepared for us. We were travelling 45 to 50 men in one car. The car stopped once a day and we were given some food. I had no spoon, no bowl, so I didn’t eat for three days. When that man came in, he had a sort of cane. He laid it to every one of us and counted one, two, three and we had to jump from one side to another. Once, he hit my elbow and I really thought it was broken. And as for the food, I hadn’t eaten for three days. Then, I thought about how I could eat without any utensils. I extended my hands to him and he put the mash, or semolina pudding, or thick bean soup right into my palms and I licked it like a dog. The way took about nine days until we arrived in a labour camp.”

“When the new collective farms were being founded, I mean the agricultural cooperatives, we were deprived of several hectares of our land, and actually it was over 6 hectares. They even didn’t give us a rent and worked our land for more than forty years. My mum didn’t get food rations as she refused to join the cooperative, you know, she didn’t get for instance sugar or other rationed goods. This way they persecuted people.”