Viktor Šefčík

In 1968, I have totally forgotten this. My father worked in PKO ( =park of culture and relaxation ), and you could get a reward vacation to Russia, to Crimea. It was really fascinating to go there. They took us children to KralovskyChlmec at the beginning of August and they went on to Russia, Crimea. And then I remember our aunt, dads younger sister. And she was all hysterical that the war was coming and they watched TV all the time. I didn’t understand, what war? Our Granny told us that we need to go buy flour, sugar, salt and everything. And then we watch near Chlmec as the tanks went by. All the roads were closed. There was nothing we could do. And father was supposed to return from holiday on the 20th. But all the trains from Russia were reserved for the army. So they went with some kind of second class train and then they waited on the border for hours. Before the crossing they were gathered in to cattle wagons and that’s how they crossed to CiernanadTisov where they changed tracks. We were at grandmamas during the invasion. Kralovsky Chlmec was a village that time and we saw the tanks there. Everyone run to shops to buy in bulk. Then our parents came and we went back to Kosice. There was an incident in Kosice. That lady that was stripped and painted was living on Stromova street. We lived in the first entrance and she in the last. In that long building. I don’t know her name anymore, but she was the wife of some Russian officer. And she went on to greet the Russians on the Main street so they stripped her naked and painted red. This happed for real. Then the people who did this got 20 years in prison.

In the sixties I went to the first grade, elementary school. It was an elementary school with Hungarian as study language. Around that time it was also founded. It was a former Jewish school and they put together Jews and Hungarians. [Documentarist asks: Is it the one on Srobarova street from the back? question of documentarist] Yes. And at that time the principal was Ratc, that poet from Kosice, now he’s got a bust there and his granddaughter is also a great artist, Noemi Ratc. Well and I started there in 1966 and they chose me so I can go to study art to Elesh. They called it the School of folk arts. It was based in Moyzesova street in a former female monastery. So they chose me and we went for the admission exams, we had to. And I remember it even now that they prepared us want we would be drawing. You’re going to draw the Soviet unionthrough the eyes of a child. They showed us pictures of Moscow and similar places. They prepared us ideologically already as six year old children. I remember that they separated us during arts class and we just trained. And now I went for the admission exams and I was very spontaneous, as all children. We had to work with ink. Everyone had a desk. We were there like ten of us and there was silence. The theme was “The Soviet Union through the eyes of a child” and we had to draw this. So I began to draw something. I got a bit carried away and I spilled some ink, there was a little puddle. And then I was like, that’s it, its over. And then one of the teachers came. I remember him until now. Mirko Milan, a very distinguished man, he was like that, he walked around like a lord. And he came and he looked and he blew in to the ink puddle and the ink went all over my drawing. I just stared. He told me, you see, here’s space and here’s a soviet rocket. I don’t know the name, I think they called it Soyuz at that time and here’s Gagarin or whoever was flying to space. So I completely felt alive again and started to draw stars just like we watched with my father through the telescope. In the end they accepted me. And that was the ideology.