Tibor Hrdlička

* 1932

National minorities, PTP (Auxiliary Technical Battalions), Witnesses of local events connected to WWII, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
25. 2. 1948 - Communist coup d‘état in ČSR, 30. 5. 1953 – 3. 6. 1953 – The monetary reform and subsequent public upheaval, 30. 5. 1945 – 29. 10. 1946 - Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, 1944 - 1945 - The liberation of Czechoslovakia, 29. 8. 1944 - April 1945 - The Slovak National Uprising, 1941 - 1945 - Transports to the concentration camps
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    Bombing of Apollo refinery (1944)

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    “We were at the vineyard, me, my father and his friend, who was later killed in the war. The planes were circling around, when the bombing was about to start. Many people died there; I don’t remember the number. But from the vineyard we could see it very well – the planes circled over Bratislava and there was a huge smoke because the gas and oil burned greatly. I remember this very well. I was twelve already.”

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    House search after passage of the front (1945)

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    “My older brother was beaten; the brass hats didn’t treat us very well. Seven people searched through our house, too. I had such a toy gun with small balls and they made a huge deal out of it. They searched the whole house. They took our blankets that my dad bought from Romanian soldiers and even a fur coat, which we bought from our cousin, but we didn’t have a receipt. We had to hand in everything at the police station. It happened immediately after the front passed through our territory.”

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    Confiscation of the vineyards

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    “We used to own four vineyards. My mom and dad bought one of them and we inherited three vineyards from my mother’s parents. When mom’s father, my grandpa, died he was ninety years old. They confiscated everything we had, except for a little piece of land, it was terrible. People had worked so hard and then others just gained their property making no effort.”

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    Bratislava, Slovensko, 27.08.2018

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Tibor Hrdlička as one of “The Black Barons” says: “They made a comedy of that film, but in the war it was completely different.”

Boy
Boy
photo: archív pamätníka
photo: archív pamätníka
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Tibor Hrdlička was born on August 7, 1932 in Bratislava. He came from a workers’ family that was mixed religiously and nationally. After the end of the Second World War, the forceful eviction of German citizens hit also Tibor’s family. He was apprenticed to a locksmith and for two years he worked in Ostrava – in a power station and in steelworks. In 1953 he enlisted in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP) in Karviná and in nearby Horní Suchá. He spent there 27 months mining in a pit. He returned to civilian life on December 22, 1955 and began to work as a locksmith. For two years he was employed in Palma enterprise and then he worked in metalworking company of the Bratislava city. Nowadays he lives retired in Bratislava.

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