Gabriela Kleinová

The work was hard. The work was hard, but you know, being able to move in the brickfield, especially when one was at the furnace and the bricks were drying there, it was allowed to move, talk with others, have a rest when the bricks weren´t in line... The bricks were heavy so the work was very hard. My hands were strained, swollen. My family sent me such straps I could wear on my hands. Our boss assigned me to work with a special cart that I distributed the bricks with from the production to the dryer. There I put them down. So I mainly worked with the cart with such a pile of bricks and that´s what I carried.

I received an invitation to report to the police office on the 2nd January 1952. I spent the Christmas with my family, parents, and children. With my sister-in-law Božena Kordová we travelled back to Bratislava together and in the morning when we were getting ready to go to work she told me: “Rather be prepared, you know, today you are called to go to the police office. It doesn´t have to be anything wrong with it; I didn´t want to tell you sooner, I wanted you to have a nice holiday.” And then I went directly to the prison "krajzák", on 2nd January 1952.

Just think about this, ten minutes after getting into the prison, right during my first walk we were walking around. At the other courtyard there were men, but I didn´t know this. I turned around and I saw my brother-in-law Kramár. I waved to him - like this. After a while I heard somebody calling “mókuš, mókuš”, a man screamed and it was my brother. So that day I met all of them, my husband, too. During half an hour being in the prison they all knew I was there; my sister, brother, brother-in-law, and my husband. Later on it began, no one even noticed me being there, waiting more than a year in a cell. I got to know many different people who came; many poor men being broke down coming from the remand centre.

November 13, 1952 suddenly a State Security raid entered our house. They rang the bell, opened, ran inside, and like some hyenas they started to do inspection. We had to legitimate ourselves; I was home alone with a child and one of my friends was over, we were supposed to go for a walk when the inspection began. They were throwing everything around, looking, searching, I don´t know what they were searching for but of course, they found nothing. “Where is your husband?” I say: “My husband isn´t here, he went hunting.” “Where is he?” I say: “Either he went to the Karlova Ves region or to Orechová Potôň. I can´t tell you, wait for him until he comes back and then you see.” I was completely frightened, I didn´t know what to do, because I was so young, inexperienced, not knowing that they can attack such a young woman. They scared me, you know, I can´t express how much. I was trembling with the fear of what they want from us. They were running around, searching, taking everything out, checking everywhere, each room, also bedroom but they had nothing to find. They took what they found, wrote down and never gave back.

It was cruel, because they didn´t have a witness against us. They had to find one and raise him to take the stand against us, so that they could arrest as many of us as possible. By the testimony of this main witness we all were sentenced to imprisonment. That was really cruel. (So the witness came) And then passing the sentences came, fifteen, sixteen, fourteen years... In our family one got fifteen years, the other fourteen, my husband eight, I got four and my sister was freed after the trial. So my sister Kramárová and my sister-in-law Kordová, they both were released. It was just us behind the bars.

My husband came; they took him, inspected, seized his rifle, and said: “Come.” One of them took him and dragged away. We kissed each other and then I didn´t see him for a long time. The inspection of our flat and my husband´s arrest lasted a long time and when they left, my friend and I stayed alone; she was also very frightened, unable to even say a word. Well, we waited what would happen next. My niece came over and when she saw what was going on in our home, she left by the back door and ran to tell my sister Kramárová what had happened.