Ing. Ján Juráš

I had a huge advantage all my life, that I was a child of the regime, and even if I begged on my knees, they simply couldn't take me for a spark or a pioneer or a "zväzák", and God forbid... when I worked after that, one excited, he wanted .. "Look at how he does...", so the staff member showed him that ..." Don't you know his biography?", which was a huge advantage, because if I had to refuse, I would probably I didn't do very well in that school or in my job, so this was a no-brainer step.. I didn't even listen to the differences, what they told us, I had my own, from my father, my grandfather, at my grandmother Šenšelová, because we lived with her when my grandfather died and my father was in the Black Period, those were wonderful memories. She was a great volunteer, the ladies met, sewed a flag for the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, wore costumes on certain occasions, and she told us all this. In the evening, we read the Bible in Kralič language, even though there were also Slovak translations, psalms, we knew several psalms by heart. Thank god for her indeed. Also for my mother, of course, she took care mainly physically, in the financial area. We didn't notice, there were four of us at home, mother, two sisters and I, of course we remembered our father, we also prayed for him in the evening, but we didn't feel at all that we had a problem, that when we went out into the street, that we were inferior and we felt very good at home. Here I must say that many times, especially me, communists, that is, members of the Communist Party, helped. Now I will skip a few years to Bátoviece, from where my father was then taken, he was already deployed, I had a severe heart attack, and then a heart murmur, I was in the hospital, and the bill came from the hospital, because I was not employed and I was not even a student. Mom was sitting over it, planting trees in the forest. Understandably, she got something, the church members also helped, especially with food. And suddenly the chairman of the General Committee of the Communist Party came to tell me how I was feeling. And I said that it's fine, only now we're so inclined... "Don't worry, from Monday you'll start the Agricultural Vocational School in Pukanec, and I'll write to them that you're our apprentice, student," he said. Mom was completely done with it, she didn't count on it, he was never for or against, we used to meet on the street, "Good day, Good day," and now suddenly this. And so then I went there for about a year, we learned a little multiplication table, ABC, and every now and then the teacher said "Look, children, how nice it is outside..." and we went to nature, but just fantasy...

Jozef Juráš from Žiar pod Baranec, what can I remember, it's hard, it's hard, but it's necessary... he went to school in his birthplace, then in the neighboring village of Smrečany, then to the gymnasium in Mikuláš, he remembered, eight kilometers in the morning there and eight kilometers back and then worked in the field. I remember the holidays in Žiar, it must have been every summer, he took us on a raft, we crossed the stream, he took us up, he prayed, and he mowed and mowed and mowed, which one would not say about a priest, but he was a boy from the village , a farmer's son, which was a big plus, because he was able to communicate with people in the villages where he later worked as a parish priest. Then with the mother's blessing, she took care of them, her brother Juraj Kordoš from Smrečany helped the mother, he did the second father to them, everything that was needed, he did a boy's job, which was for me, great uncle, a great memory.. He studied theology with enthusiasm, it was clear that he could not do anything else, and then he studied in Germany and had to escape from there, because in the morning they saluted the image of the leader with raised right hands and he refused. After the second or third refusal, it started to get bad, so he ran back, got on a ship as a lifeguard to Bratislava... and then the military things of World War II happened. In the forty-seventh year, when I was born, he received an invitation to the United States, for a six-month study, especially about Sunday schools. Children and youth were a huge interest of his, at that time he was also the secretary of the Union of Evangelical Youth, which later hurt him a lot in those courts. He received permission from the leadership of the church and from the state for this stay. But during that time, tons of all kinds of things were already happening in Slovakia. He was later much rebuked by his contacts, but he couldn't just get around him...he was the president of the National Lutheran Council, John Foster Dulles. who was later US Secretary of State and a great enemy of Communism, let's put it this way. Of course, this also reached Slovakia. They liked him there very, very much, and he in turn liked them, even on such a broken record, farewell speeches were recorded, where they thanked him for coming, wished that he could apply these experiences in Slovakia, so that he learned everything. He personally brought spirituals to me, not recorded ones, but he sang them to me, and I fell in love with them. And then I was lucky enough to be able to organize the Great August Evenings of Spirituals with the participation of the Slovak singing elite, the Danes were there, a Kenyan woman, so it was really such a great gift from him to me..