Jozef Krajňák

“The worst thing was that we weren´t allowed to sit down the whole day. We had to walk. The chair in the wall was skew, so even if one sat on it for a while, he got calluses as he was sliding down. And we could go to bed only at nine o´clock. There was no way to sit on the bed during the day. It was a simple bed, made out of straw mattress. Few minutes before nine in the evening, a train used to arrive from Košice. Therefore we always used to listen to the locomotive air horns representing the time for bed to us, because we were terribly exhausted from the whole-day walking. Our feet were swollen, too.”

“It was a horrible era and I used precisely the following words in my speech: “This is era that persecutes the truth and promotes lies; era that destroys the best sons of nation, people whose desire is to work for material and intellectual welfare. It forcibly disrupts them from our ranks. It tortures and drags them from prison to prison until after many years there are only lifeless bodies left to live on.” This was the main part I said. Besides this, I pilloried the regime also in other ways, but these were the words which, as they were said publicly aloud, were considered a criminal offence during their regime. My only luck at that funeral was that the public address system was off. If it was broadcasted to the whole village, I would have been sentenced up to nine years of imprisonment.”

“My family, my wife came to visit me once to the Northern Bohemia, to Belušice. She received permission and so she traveled whole night from Hrabušice. Our children stayed with her mom. Though, she was allowed to spend with me only half an hour. We could talk together, but the State Security member had to be present there all the time; we couldn´t talk about anything else, except the family matters. The issue of how we were treated there was a taboo; we could not speak about that.”

“I was really afraid that during the investigation I would have to reveal the names of people from Kežmarok who gave me things that the State Security found during the home inspection. This way I would have caused serious problems to these people. However, Lord God arranged it the way that they asked me nothing about those people. And till now I am thankful to God for this, because it was my greatest concern whether I would be forced to say something bad about someone. Luckily, it never happened. Thanks God.”

“We had four children at the time when I was arrested for delivering the speech over the grave of Bishop Vojtaššák in Zákamenné. My family put up with it with many difficulties, because there was only one more day until I would receive the family allowance. After my arrest, my wife received only twenty crowns and no one from the government was concerned to help, to care about how the family would survive. Thanks God, there were some good people around who helped her overcome this greatest crisis.”