Pavel Lacko

"In 1938, my mom took me to Sobota, because the Hungarians were coming, Hungarian troops. It was autumn in 1938, and we were waiting in the square, there were also many other people from Pokoradz, after all, it was a bit strange that the Hungarians would come to Sobota. We just did not understand back then what was actually happening. I was also - so to say - a kid. So we were walking around and we saw that street, I think it was Bartok Street, down by the marketplace, in the direction of Janovce. We looked around - the Hungarian flags were on every house, they were hanging all the way from the top floor to the ground. But we were there, it was still Czechoslovakia and those Hungarian flags there seemed out of place. We just didn’t know what to think. Well, someone told us what was going on, that Hungarians were coming, so we went to the square. And in an hour or two, we saw an awful lot of troops, with guns, wearing helmets, being sad, those walking soldiers were so sad. It’s hard to say how many, but I guess there were several thousand soldiers, because I remember (we were still boys and a few months before), the whole grammar school was occupied by troops. When they came out to the courtyard, it was not as small as it is now, but one size bigger, and they stood all the way to that block of flats. When they lined up, I looked – well there had to be at least a thousand soldiers. So those political things were already happening when Hitler was in power."

"In 1945 on Christmas Eve, suddenly - it was very peaceful before - there was no shooting, nothing - and suddenly there was shouting in the village, voice: ʻRussians are here, Russians are here,ʼ so we went outside of course, it was around lunch time, everyone was cooking, as you do on Christmas Eve. Around 20 - 30 Russian soldiers with machine guns and one chariot – there was a Russian captain inside. Allegedly they came as a patrol to Pokoradz from Rimavská Sobota. Well, it was a joy, a terrible joy, everyone was shouting at soldiers, 'Come in for lunch,' we understood each other, so about 20 households invited those boy soldiers. In about an hour - a scream, a terrible cry: ‘the Germans are coming, the Germans are coming,ʼ and yet at the top end of the village were Germans. Machine guns, automatics, what a shooting it was, it was something awful. And just imagine, those Russians, those boys, how they disappeared, you can’t even imagine, not a single one died, because we would have kniwn, if any did; and the captain, just horses with the carriage remained in the village frightened by the shooting. The Germans then searched each house with bayonets, and came to us as well... ʻWhere Russians, where Russians?ʼ they looked under the beds and so. And within few hours, the village was occupied. I know that they had three tanks. We had - and still have – an orchard in Vyšná Pokoradz and just imagine it, through the three trees - not that they would go alongside them, but through those trees they went. Then the Germans stayed with us for the whole 14 days. Of course, they furthermore attacked Nižná Pokoradz too, however, people there were already prepared for them; there were machine guns, automatics in the windows. Thus the Germans didn’t take over Nižná Pokoradz, but they returned and remained in Vyšná Pokoradz. Obviously the Russian cannons, Russian mortars. We had such bad luck that a mine fell down just in front of our house. I [was] in the room at the centre of the house, where we had a stove made of clay, and next to me shrapnel from the mine [fell] into the stove; even today there is a hole. However, it smashed the windows, all windows got broken and glaziers didn’t exist at that time. Well then we all were sleeping in the basement. We had - that basement is still there - about eight steps deep under the house, it wasn’t cold there. At the front of the basement door, from the entrance, we put some massive beams in, in case of mine being dropped. We lived by a tower and the Russians fired at that tower, because one could have a view from that tower.”