Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

Interview with Mr. Jozef Kycka
First I would like to ask you something about your childhood. When and where were you
born?
I was born on February 23, 1928 in Opatov, in southern Slovakia. The region is Zlenice. My
father occasionally worked for farmers or people who had land. I lived there from February
to September 1928 and then my whole family moved to the United States where my father
got employment in a factory that made batteries. It was in Cleveland, Ohio. After about three
years we had to return together with my mom and older brother since there were some property
disputes in Slovakia. It all was solved in 1937 and then we were supposed to move back
to the United States. I don’t really remember this well, but I know there were two different
companies, Brehmen and Loyd and one of them was facing bankruptcy. Another agent came
to us and offered another company that we could travel with. Finally it took all so long that
we couldn’t travel from Hamburg anymore, because it was 1938. We were then supposed to
leave from Turkey, through the Suez Canal, around Africa, and then back to America. That all
finally didn’t happen so we stayed here. My brother joined the Slovakian Army 1 and was sent
to the fast division on the Eastern Front in Russia. When they were retreating he got lost all of
a sudden and we got a statement that he died, but I couldn’t believe it. I went to the grammar
school in Trnava because Hungarians occupied Levice. In our village there was one lady who
was a nun in Trnava and she offered us to live in Trnava in the orphanage as boarders and go
to school there. We attended grammar school in the town of Trnava until 1944, until the Slovak
National Rebellion. 2
Do you remember the process of the Slovak National Rebellion and the way the Soviet Army
behaved in this case?
It didn’t happen close to us. It happened so quickly that on the night of the 28th they were
broadcasting it on the radio and on the 29th there were already Soviets in our country. We
were set free by the Soviet Army on December 20, 1944. We were occupied by the Soviet Army
and they stayed until the end of March when they finally took Budapest. During those three
months we really learned about their brotherly love. It was the Second Army from Ukraine,
which was led by Malinovsky and these people were mostly from Gulags 3 . What they were saying
to us, we couldn’t believe. They picked sixteen year-old boys, including me. We shouldn’t
really say they choose us rather they came and told us, “Tomorrow, you start.” I had to go to
the bakery to help for three months. There were prisoners working with us and also soldiers
who had a special sign on their uniforms. This meant they were the elite guard. The main commander
of this part of the front lived in our house. Every two weeks or once a month they
1 Slovak State (officially the Slovak Republic) Today´s Slovakia. It existed in 1939–1945 and was abridged of the occupied
Hungarian territory. The first Slovak Republic was a political and military ally to Nazi Germany.
2 The Slovak National Rebellion – it was an armed riot of the anti-fascist power in Slovakia at the end of WWII.
3 Gulag was one of the departments of the secret police in the Socialistic bloc, managing a system of concentration
and working camps in the U.S.S.R. The word gulag was then used for a group of these camps and camps under this
institution.
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