Dominik Slobodník

“... It was necessary to feed them. You know, there were many soldiers, about 2,000 (men) especially in Donovaly and in Priechod... and we had to feed them, we had to! If we had refused, they would have come and used their methods. There were young boys among partisans with the Russians who even didn’t speak Russian at all... One of them usually came, leaned his machine gun against man’s chest and said: ‘Davaj!’ Suddenly they spoke Russian. Then, we had to give them everything we had.”

“Well, when the uprising was proclaimed, everyone moved into the mountains. But then, about two weeks later, it was said that nothing would happen to people, who would return home. So then, people flocked home; I remember it was raining and everyone walked being wrapped in canvas. Everyone found their way home, because it was impossible to live in mountains if people had nothing to eat, if they had no supplies.”

“If somebody at the upper end of the village shouted that the Germans were approaching, partisans immediately took to flight from here. We used laugh at them. They headed down, towards the river where there was a playground. In such hurry, they were losing everything they had; I mean various magazines of their automatics and the like.”