Josef Stanko

* 1926

Officials of the Czechoslovak People´s Army in 1948-1989, Witnesses of local events connected to WWII, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu, Farmer, Member of the Czechoslovak People's Army
29. 8. 1944 - April 1945 - The Slovak National Uprising, 25. 2. 1948 - Communist coup d‘état in ČSR, 21. 8. 1968 - Invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, 14. 3. 1939 – The foundation of the Slovak State
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    Becoming a coachman and a ploughman

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    "Eventually, I had to replace my father at work myself. I was twelve or thirteen years old. My father had fallen ill with bone tuberculosis. When he got a prosthetic on his arm, he couldn't do much with it and so I, as a twelve-year-old, had to replace him. It was around harvest time, and so I gathered grain for my father. He would prepare the horses and the cart but then he handed them to me and I drove to the field to collect the grain and bring it to to threshing machine. This is how things were throughout harvest time." - "That must've been hard." - "Yes it was. As a twelve-year-old, I had to lift and load the sheaves, and to align them, that wasn't easy. Then to transport them to the threshing machine... I had to do my best to get it done. And not only that. After harvest, I had to plough the field, replacing my father. The worst part was loading the plough on a cart and transporting it towards the field where I had to unload it again, assemble it and plough with it. It weighed around forty kilos and I had a hard time just loading it."

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    German soldiers at the end of the war

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    duration: 02:02
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    "In practice, they used the farmhouse for their own accommodation. They had all of their weapons there, cooked their meals and all in all, settled in before withdrawing to the East." - "Was this the farmhouse where you used to live?" - "Yes, we used to live there." - "And what were the German soldiers like?" - "They were not excited because they probably already fought in France. And from France, they were relocated to Russia, so they marched through the main west-east road towards Michalovce, Svidník and the other villages there. Towards the border of the Soviet Union." - "And some of the German soldiers lived on your farmhouse?" - "Only to spend the nights there." - "Such as one or two nights?" - "Some two or three nights. Just the necessary time and then they moved away. Among them were soldiers who said that if they were about to fight Russia, they'd rather shoot themselves. This was their take on going towards Russia."

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    Service in the army as a way towards better life

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    duration: 01:21
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    "They insisted that as a soldier, I had to be a member of the Party. And so when I was in Military Academy, they drafted me to the Party, I undersigned my application there." - "You hadn't done it because you were an enthusiastic communist?" - "No, not at all." - "But you wanted to stay in the army." - "Well, of course, otherway, I wouldn't have been there." - "The army was a political army." - "In principle, all of the officers were communists. Party members." - "Why did you want to serve in the army?" - "I'm telling you I filed my application to the training and I was happy for being accepted; also for leaving the environment that I lived in as a boy and as a teenager. It was a dirty environment, it really was unfortunate."

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    Praha, 19.03.2018

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    duration: 01:46:34
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Mum really wanted me to study

In the 1950s
In the 1950s
photo: archiv pamětníka
photo: archiv pamětníka
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Josef Stanko was born on 7 August 1926 in Prešov, Slovakia. He grew up in poverty as the fifth child of a servant and a coach driver and had to work hard ever since childhood. When his father fell ill with bone tuberculosis, he had to cover for his tasks: ploughing and taking care of the horses. For a short time, he trained to become a locksmith and a car mechanic. Then, he went on to study a teaching institute. Following graduation in 1946, he decided for a military career instead and got further training in the military school in Hranice na Moravě. He went through a number of units, worked as a military instructor and in 1951-1954 studied at Military Academy. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, worked at the army general staff in Prague and attained the ranking of colonel. Due to his disagreement with the 1968 Warsaw Pact armies invasion, he was expelled from both the army and the party. Up until retirement, he worked as a security technician in a construction company. He got married in 1951 and had three children.

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