Zuzana Bacigálová

“I was there [in Moravany] for three years. Then my brothers started to attempt to get me home to Orava, because it was a different land then already. So I could return there then because my mum was ill, so they attempted, fought for it. They fought and so I succeeded in getting back to Orava where I took care of my mum and awaited the return of my husband who returned in 1956. The lawsuit was over. We were rehabilitated, got some money but not any huge amount. Then we came – before the suit where my husband was liberated took place – to Senec. But there we had nowehere to live, our house was already confiscated. So his sister gave us a little room and we stayed there. But then it was too small to us because we were awaiting a child. One teacher who taught my husband let us in her flat. There were two rooms, where we stayed for two years. And then we moved three times. The relations weren’t good, even at the office. The chief was terrible, annoying. It was not too good. We bought an older house in Lichnerová Street. We even borrowed some money; my husband had a good friend who lent him. So we bought a small house, repaired it and then moved in.”

“My husband was a foreign soldier. He was on a military service and there he had to change for the Hungarian army. Then he got to Svoboda’s army and was abroad. He fought in Russia. He was wounded and was healing somewhere in Kyiv. He had a leg wound and then returned as a 25-percent disabled veteran. But it was something he could live with. He begun to work at home, as a foreign soldier he was assigned a flat. Not a flat but the land he could later buy. It was fifteen hectares that he bought and built a family house there. So we started to farm. I was from Orava, taught to work well, my husband as well. We had horses, we had the whole farm. We worked on what was necessary. My husband was supposed to join the collective but he didn’t want to. He wanted a “third type” to be founded, but the chiefs were against that and said there would be no “third type”. In many places they had agreements that to people who join the collective, they would give eight percent. But those chiefs of ours didn’t acknowledge that, they didn’t like it, so they said that it is not good and that they are against it. So they decided – there were such four peasants here in Senec whom they leveled against – that it is necessary to make them right. And that also happened. On July 24th, 1952 they came to a trashing-machine and arrested those four there. My husband was somewhat the head of them. On July 24, they took them away.” Redactor: Do you know who arrested them? “Who arrested them? The State Security came for them and drove them to Bratislava, to the Justice Palace and there the investigation begun. The lawsuit began on December 2, 1952 – a big lawsuit. Before, they walked the streets and announced to come and hear the kulaks from villages, what have they done, something against the “third type” of the collective. So it was a big ado; that was horrible for me. It was unbelievable, we were married for only four or five months, so it was unbelievable, inconceivable for me what was happening. So they sentenced them, my husband to seven years. He also got a fine of fifty thousand and ban of residence in the district of Senec for life. The other three – one of them even got ten years and a hundred thousand, and so it ended up like that. They sentenced them on December 2, and then took them away. I didn’t even receive a permit for visit, I could go on no more. Than they moved them probably to Leopoldov, Ilava and I think he also was in Pankrác. He wrote me nothing about it and from there they put them to Jáchymov, all four of them, my husband as a head of them.”

“After they arrested my husband they came along with some district officers to write down everything that was in the house. For the last time I was sitting here, a ring on my hand with his initials on it, a large one. The officer – Kováč was called – probably already dead. I had to give him the ring, that couldn’t happen nowadays. They took the ring from me because there were his initials on it. They wrote down everything what was in wardrobes, just everything. It was a great shock for me, you know, I wasn’t used to such things. I was a young woman, unable to orientate myself in what I was supposed to do. But it just happened. So for some time then I was looking for a job because I had none. I couldn’t even find one, it was in 1952. Not before 1953 I managed to find a job - I got employed in a mill. I got it because of favoritism, but they gave me a job coating the sacks – there was such a mill here back then, but nowadays it is a ruin. They gave me such a lousy job, coating sacks for wheat and such. There I was for three months. After three months one man there said that I can’t work there so that I wouldn’t put nails in the wheat and what do I know. So I got fired. Two or three days later I received a letter that I need to move out from our family house immediately, which we had in Oravská street, number six. I was to move in elsewhere into a house along with some others who were sentenced.. But I refused to accept that, I handed in an appeal and said that I won’t go for it, but I could do nothing. I received an answer that I need to move out immediately and if not that they would relocate me themselves. And so it happened. They came the third day because someone had already had permit to live in the flat. That was some teacher, named Polák, with four or six children. They put me into one room in the back. And in the meantime I got a letter that they were going to relocate me. So it happened. One morning came up, the police arrived, one big lorry, men came and loaded it with everything. I came to say goodbye to my closest, my mother-in-law. And one policeman had to come with me so that I wouldn’t leave, I guess. So I said goodbye to my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law and such and I had to come back. I got in, the lorry was loaded with all the furniture and everything possible and they drove me to Bohemia, to a state property. Moravany, it was called, county of Čáslav, district of Pardubice.”