“Early in the morning we set off to get some firewood and we knew that on the iron bar there was a military boat fixed, in which was a rifle. And so we thought if we were first there, we would have seized it. However, there were two brothers from our neighborsʼ, only little elder than us, who had about a 100 m head start from us. We were jealous they were first. Unfortunately, they ran into the mined forefront of a bridge. One mine exploded, killed the older brother and the younger one got injured. So we were really lucky not to be the first ones.”
“I had a classmate whose father was a shopkeeper. He owned the biggest store in Žarnovica, where also Germans used to go shopping. Once we had visited him, we made up horrible game. We wrote on little papers: ʻDeath to German occupants!ʼ and we threw them out of the attic window. It was such bullshit to do, since if anyone gave those to Germans, they would probably liquidate the shopkeeper. What a huge childish imprudence! I guess that was also a reason why my parents forbade me to visit my friend Ľudovít.”
“My father had difficulties with supplying, with milk as well as with firewood. We didn´t have water. There wasn´t a water main at all. Occasionally we tried to help out and we used to go for wood with sledge, however, on the bridge there was a German guard. When they saw us walking down the forest through scattered trees, they began shooting at us. We hid in one dingle, where we just prayed. At last one man helped us to walk through the other side into the village.”
Jozef Havran was born on February 14, 1936 in Svätý Benedik (today Hronský Beňadik). During the Second World War he lived as a child in Revištské Podzámčie. In 1959 he graduated from his university studies at the former Faculty of Electrotechnology at the Slovak Technical University. Since 1961 he worked in a Tesla company in Liptovský Hrádok, where he used to contribute into the company´s magazine called “Podtatranský Teslák”, as well as to the district newspaper “Nový Liptov”. During the normalization era he was subscribed to receive Christian samizdats and wrote to the Catholic Newspaper. He has been retired today and sometimes he writes into literary magazines.
