“Where were you when the bombing of the Nitra city began?”
“We were in the Nitra seminary. The bombs were falling right on our heads. It was horrible since I didn´t make it to run into the shelter and on the hall in front of the chapel, I guess, there were three of us. We saw everything smacking, doors going back and forth under such pressure. Then we swept the glass from the windows, took it away and they sent us home.”
“I remember it was during the Christmas holiday when the Germans were by us already, and we were about to have the midnight mass. However, we had some problems with the lights back then. I spoke a little of German, so they sent me to negotiate with the commander if they would allow us to have that mass. So I went there, talked to them and they agreed. We just had to black out our windows well.”
Eduard Ľudovít Mokráš was born on November 2, 1924 in the village of Šalgov (today´s Svätoplukovo). Gradually he attended the elementary school in his native village, the grammar school in Prievidza, and a seminary in Nitra. During his life in the “city under Zobor hill” (Nitra) he became a witness of the break out of the Slovak National Uprising, and mostly of the carpet bombing of this city. After the front´s crossing he continued his studies to become a priest. He enlisted in the compulsory military service at the Auxiliary Technical Battalion, where he spent almost four years. This period was accompanied by frequent moving to various places in Bohemia. After returning from the draft he served as a priest in different parishes, for example in Považská Bystrica or Ilava, where the church was a part of the local prison.
