“I was born on February 18, 1925 in Belá. I come from a big family of ten children, whereas I was the eldest. We were four brothers and six girls. After the elementary school, until March 1944 I was apprenticed in a car repair shop in Martin. I worked in this company until the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising on August 28. There was a general mobilization declared in Martin, so all six employees enlisted into the Martin military barracks. The boss lent me a motorcycle to go to Belá and tell my father I was joining the Uprising. And the father agreed.”
“How Germans treated us while being in the concentration camp, it was horrible. We were all lousy, really filthy. I remember that about a week after arriving to Altengrabow camp they wanted to disinfect us from lice and put our clothes into steam. It was after a week or two as we came to Germany. It was cold outside already, it was November. They said they had to give us a bath, so they ordered us to undress. They cut our hair, shaved our armpits, privates, we had to take off our clothes. It was so… Then they put us under cold showers and our clothes into steam. Right from the cold shower, naked, we had to line up on the court. I shall never forget how we stood in that cold and had to endure. I am surprised how I survived it and lived until this age of ninety years, since I have always been of a weaker figure, born as a twin.”
“So they took us to Germany. They loaded us into those cattle cars, but you have already heard that for sure. The car was full and what did they give us? We got half bread (back then called ‘commissar’) and that was it. The one, who ate it, was hungry later. And we traveled about a week to Germany. Some people had some food with them; I had a little piece of cheese. Next to me there was a small boy, a Jew who had few cakes in his backpack. From time to time he shared some. We went to Žilina, Horní Lideč, I remember, we continued down to Moravia through Austria, Vienna, and Nuremberg.”
Matej Valocký was born on February 18, 1925 in Belá as the eldest of ten siblings and one of the twins. His mother served at the farmers’ homesteads and father worked as a village tailor. Since 1941 he was apprenticed in a car repair shop in Martin, where partisans got their cars repaired. On August 28, 1944 after declaring the general mobilization, he along with another journeymen and the shop´s owner joined the army, siding with the Slovak National Uprising. After long months of marching through the mountains and fighting the German troops, Matej Valocký was captured by Germans during reconnaissance on November 15. As a prisoner of war he was transported to Germany and imprisoned at the labor camp Altengrabow, Stalag 11 A, and later also in Weidenberg. After being liberated by American troops and coming back to Slovakia he returned to work at the car repair shop, although the work became very difficult for him. He got employed at the Secondary Vocational School, and in a forge of machine engineering factory (ZŤS). There he worked until his retirement in 1985. With his wife they brought up one son and two daughters in Košťany nad Turcom.
