Ružena Kramárová

Well, we don´t know, they came to take him and he did not come back. After a year, they came and took me, supposedly to confirm my husband´s testimony. They took me from three little children; the youngest was eighteen months old. And three children were left to their grand mother.

It´s not even possible to describe it, to talk about it. It was so great and so sad as well. Sad, because they stole him ten years of productive work he would have offered to the state. He helped churches; he helped everyone who came to him. Such a generous man, generous, but consistent he was.

That was the worst time of my life. I lost more than twenty kilos (44 Lbs) on weight. My husband could write me once a month a postal card with twenty words. And he wrote me: "I saw your laundry hung outside at the courtyard, that´s how I know you are here. Just trust that after the trial we get home."

I knew we did nothing wrong. That was the only thing that kept me hoping. Even though half a year I slept on the floor, on such a straw mattress, because it was a period of shutting in, capturing at the boarders, right? And everything was full. There were six of us in the cell with two beds. Two were lying on the beds and other on the floor. And really, what kept me going on was the card where my husband wrote that he knew I was there. And then in the evenings he sometimes whistled our love song, and that was my strength.

The Slovak National Uprising came and my eldest Brother Alexander was its commander. He had the biggest military arsenal in Slovakia and he sent another commander for us who worked in the Žilina region and whom Alexander supplied with ammunition. Once we had a little cottage in Jánošíkov and when Alexander came, my husband picked him up by a little boat. They stayed at a little terrace in front of the cottage where my husband was told that Hitler will be assassinated. “Why did you come?” my husband asked. “I brought some eggs from the Orolaz,” answered my brother, and that´s where the ammunition was being transferred. There were guards on both sides of the road so the transfer was done very quickly. Then he left and we didn´t see him anymore, because he was captured. Our family had to move from Vrútky; Alexander´s friend (the commander) brought a lorry, loaded everything possible and took everyone to Pliešovce. So my family was in Pliešovce and we went to Bratislava by the last train with little Ivan and Zinka, whom I was expecting to be born.