a graduate of Philology Zuzana Skácelová

“The Germans occupied Slovakia after 1st September 1944, after the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising. Tiso got afraid that he might be swept over by it, and he thus turned to Hitler who sent in the army. That was when all the hell broke loose for us. The transports which carried away my other relatives, my mother’s sister, her husband and daughter, who was eighteen, had been dispatched already in 1942 and 1943. We were told that they were going to dig trenches somewhere, but they were actually – as we learnt much later, in 2008 – sent to Auschwitz straight to the gas chambers. I do not know why my eighteen-year-old cousin was gassed, because usually they retained the families who were able to work. We were immensely lucky. Although we were little children, I was seven and my sister was two years old when we came to Vyhne, we were not included in these transports. That was a miracle. One of the first miracles. Then we were on the run for four months after our arrival to Slovakia. We had to keep hiding. By various means we were trying to reach the east of Slovakia, as far as possible from the advancing German army, and we eventually found ourselves in the southern Slovakian town Rimavská Sobota, where Mr. Ďulovec, for whom I later arranged the recognition and the medal Righteous Among the Nations, took care of us. He took us to his home, which was in the Slovak Ore Mountains in the village Drahová. We stayed with them for ten days while Mr. Ďulovec and my father were going to the mountains and digging that bunker there. It was behind the village and the villagers lent us wooden planks for its construction. We lived in this bunker for seven weeks in January and February 1945. The whole village knew about us and there was not a single person who betrayed us.”

“Hlinka’s supporters managed to escape, and partisans came in and told us: ´We are dissolving the camp. You are free to go wherever you want.´ We thus found a family in the village with which we stayed. But the Nazis came there soon after, and that was the end. We had to run away. On top of that, Dad contracted dysentery while we were fleeing. It all became very complicated. We partly walked and sometimes somebody gave us a ride on a wagon. I remember that we boarded the last train which left Banská Štiavnica. That was twelve kilometers from Vyhne. The track was then destroyed by bombing. We arrived to Zvolen, where the repatriation office was, and they advised us to go to southern Slovakia where it would be safer for us. We therefore continued southward.”