Ľubomír Hatala

“When we went by bus from Prievidza, I was standing all the way, as there were elder ones needed to be seated. The windows were painted so that no one could see inside. We were not allowed to open them, the policemen with submachine guns sat inside, and so on. As we went from Prievidza, there was also a boy, about two years younger than me. He asked me if I didn’t know some girl, whose name he also told me, but I didn’t know her. I said she must have been younger and that I didn’t know her. I looked better at him and he had holes on both palms. He could only be 18 or 19 years old. A young guy. Maybe even younger. I asked him what was that and he said he took cigarettes and burnt his hands himself. I thought to myself he had to be insane, but he continued to ask me about knowing the girl. I said I didn’t and that I had quite different things to think of, so that he should knock it off. However, there was another weird man, a bit older, jumping out of his seat. I didn’t know, where he was from. He stood up and said, ‘I am the convict no. this and that and I swear I wanted to betray this republic, thus I broke the law no. this and that…’ The policemen seated him back, told him to be quiet, to quit doing that, but in about half an hour he jumped again and did the same thing. Well, both him and the young guy were completely insane.” “Was that from the interrogations?” “Yes, for sure. And the young boy surely lied about burning his hands by himself. I bet it was during the interrogations when they burnt his palms. Those were really shocking moments for me.”

“There was a man who slept there and was drunk. It was already daybreak, when he ran out and boasted to Germans how well they fired, how well they drove the partisans away. He boasted there were many, although supposedly, there was just one trying to reach them. I told him in German, so that he understood, he was a coward and not to talk big. And he replied, ‘What have you just said?’ He ran away and returned with a submachine gun, with the German one, he pointed it at me and pushed me to the wooden fence behind me. He wanted to shoot me, to kill me. When the fellows saw it, two of them started running. There was a hillside, a little stream, and a street, where commander Otto Mock stayed at his friend’s house, who was also a commander. They shouted, ‘Mr. Mock, Mr. Mock, come, please, come and save him.’ He ran out hearing they needed him to come with, because some German wanted to ‘schiessen’ shoot me dead. Thus, he dashed in and wrenched the gun from his hand. He asked him, whether the soldier wanted to start shooting kids or what. Moreover, he sent him to report what happened to some higher commander in the morning.”