Jaromír Nickl

* 1929

  • “I was at home, because my father had died. I got six days off, but someone probably made mistake there and the vacation was approved in writing for the whole month. At first, I didn’t notice it. The commander told me: ‘Here you have a permit to leave for 6 days.’ From Žatec to Poprad it is quite a slog and back then, there were not electric machines to ride. Well, anyway, I used it only for those 6 days as I had fear of what could have happened.”

  • “The Second World War came and we had quite problems, since we lived near the station. When partisans passed through, there was a terrible shooting and rattle everywhere. Fortunately, we survived it all. I can say that they’d considered us to be the Spiš Germans, although my dad was Moravian and my mom, she had always been a housewife. During the existence of Czechoslovakia, various languages used to be spoken in different households – Slovak, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, as well as German. No one cursed anyone; people lived and got along with each other. Only after the war came, it became bad.”

  • “When I was an adult, I had to be drafted. Back then we didn’t know, or better, we didn’t even have a clue of what the PTP could have been like. They took us to Libavá, where we had the training and then they transported us in pig cars to Most. During the whole time I was a soldier, I held a pickaxe and a shovel in my hands. Those were our weapons. We were building houses, roads, everything what was needed. We had to accomplish the plan and who didn’t, wasn’t even allowed to go for a walk. From the very beginning it was very hard for me, because I was a barber. And I had to spend in military service 31 or 32 months.”

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    Liptovský Hrádok, Slovensko, 17.03.2018

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Shovel and pickaxe, those were our weapons

At a mature age
At a mature age

Jaromír Nickl was born on February 27, 1929 in Poprad. He attended the elementary school in Poprad and in this city he was also apprenticed to become a barber. After the Second World War the family was endangered by eviction due to alleged German nationality as well as because they spoke German at home. From April 1951 until November 1953 he was assigned to the compulsory military service in penal Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP). He spent it at several places - Libavá, Přerov, Most, Plzeň, Zbůch, and finally in Žatec. When he returned into civilian life, he had great problems to get employed and find a place for living. He married to Zuzana, née Michalková and they moved to Liptovský Hrádok. Lastly he managed to get a job in the local Tesla factory, where he worked until his retirement. Nowadays, his family takes care of him in Liptovský Hrádok.