Mikuláš Paul

“I could have come back, but it was not worth it. The Bander groups were raiding the place… Some of our boys went there, but they stripped them naked, took their military uniforms. It was not worth going there.”

“The Germans advanced to forests and we followed them. They did not give up. We followed them. We came to the forest, the Germans stopped there, and the Russian soldiers were already taking them captives – pulling their shoes from their feet, and taking everything…”

“Personally, I have nothing to complain about. When I walked to school, I walked on a railroad track, we lived near a railroad, and it was being guarded by Germans. They already knew me, said hello to me every time. I did not have any problems with them.”

“I remember how the Germans gathered all the Gypsies, led them out and began to shoot them. We attacked them. One of the Gypsies asked us to give him a sub-machine gun, that he would settle it with them by himself. Our soldier gave him the sub-machine gun and he shot them all.”

“That´s the way Dukla was. A soldier made a path, and we all walked on that path. If you stepped aside, you stepped on a land mine. It was all mined. It was terrible. Where possible, a tank would pass first, and the soldiers then walked in the tracks it made, or you just had to be awfully careful. The mines looked like small wooden boxes – there was an explosive and a fuse. It could tear your leg off, if you stepped on it.”

“There was a little boy and he always followed me. He comes to me and says: ´My Daddy invites you for dinner.´ I took some tins with food, because as for supplies, we had enough. And cigarettes, also. And I went to their place. He was very surprised that we were being supplied so well.”