"We were volunteers, not soldiers. Not even conscripts. We only had Bata uniforms. I didn't have a rifle; neither did Fero Košíkar. We were like auxiliaries in that group. In the first encounter, as the German troops advanced, they had transporters—on them machine gun nests. We had our first encounter with machine gun and rifle fire. We saw how they advanced along the road from Velké Bielice to Batovany and then to Šimonovany. There, we met them head-on, face to face; on the 5th of September, one from our group was wounded. He was screaming for help. I got scared too, my tears were falling, I couldn't help him because I had a rucksack, grenades and bullets. I didn't have a rifle. Someone gave him help."
"They arranged for me to hide at my mom's brother's place. The manor belonged to a granary. The granary had a wooden floor. They took me there and I was there until the 17th of January, before the Russians came."
"We had ten Jewish families in Lemešany. Every Jew had a trade. I went to school with them, with those boys and girls. When the law was passed, the Jews had to leave to work in Germany or, I don't know where. We didn't know then that they would go to concentration camps. First, the girls went, as seamstresses, somewhere near Levoča. Then, guys and whole families. Then there was Aryanization. In 1945, I was curious whether they returned or not. I knew them very well because my father was a good friend to them."
František Orlovský was born in 1928, and his twin brother Jan. Mr. Orlovsky’s father, Alexander Orlovsky, was a state road builder. František studied in Lemešany and later graduated from the burgher school in Prešov. From there, he came to Bata, where he graduated as an electrician from the Bata School of Labour. On 28 August 1944, he joined the SNP. He worked in the Upper Nitra partisan brigade of Captain Trojan. Later, he worked as a guard at the Tri Duby airfield. After the suppression of the uprising, he moved to the Low Tatras. In Donovaly, he distributed weapons and food for the partisan units. He spent the war in hiding, and on 18 January, he lived to see the liberation of his native village. After the end of the war, he finished his schooling in Batovany. In 1948, he entered the non-commissioned officer school, and after finishing it, he was assigned to the western border of Czechoslovakia to the artillerymen. In 1956, he had two children: a daughter, Emilia, on January 8 and a son, Frantisek, on December 24. During his military service, he graduated from college in Brno, and after graduation, he was transferred to the Military Administration in Karlovy Vary. In 1976, he was transferred to Prešov, where he remained until his retirement. He retired on the 1st of September, 1990. He left the army with the rank of colonel. During his retirement, he was active in the Union of Czechoslovak Anti-Fascist Fighters. Today, he is 96 years old and lives in Lemešany.
