"My father took us, me and my younger sister by the hands, I was eight to nine years old. A blind guy has taken me and my sister and we are going to the mountain! And mom took the cow. Why? If we have nothing to eat, at least we would drink milk, because in the mountain no one will give us bread. So we went there. But when they found out, those mines didn't go directly to the village, but just somehow in this direction "outside". Because outside is not straight. They were miscalculated. They just flew above the place.... you know... how! Like when it flashes and thunders! And one after another! And where the mine fell, there was black ground, it was burned. But they miscalculated it. We can say that the Lord God saved us, that they did not aim exactly. When the Germans left the Settlement, there was such fire. I remember so much that we were shaking, it was evening. "
"There was a mobilization in 1944. Hey, huh? This means they called men of all ages, who could possibly enlist, to join the army, they called them to come to the military administration. My father was relatively young, so he belonged to the age of men, who were recruited. But he was already blind, he went blind when I was three years old. It was summer, my mother had cut the grass, it needed to be collected and carried to the barn on the back. So she sent me with my father and the men supposed to enlist. We came to Ružomberok for military administration, but my father was not accepted due to his blindness.
They also gave us food, it was some strange porridge. They sent one soldier, I don't know who it was, they gave him money to take us on the train because Korytnička went to Osada. So the soldier went with us to the station, but he did not have the patience to wait so he bought us a ticket, gave it to my father and left. We stayed there, I could not read the clocks at that time. We were waiting, waiting.... "But what time is it?" Father asked. "I don't know" I replied. Someone passed by us, my father asked him "What time is it? The train was supposed to leave." And the man replied: "Sir, the train left already a long time ago." And we stayed at the train station, a blind man and an eight years old child, we stayed at the train station! But what to do now? We have no connection home! So we walked on foot. The father was of course nervous, he even lost me a few times, but I was a foolish child. Then we asked along the way if we are going in the right direction, whether we are not lost? And we somehow in the end got to Biely Potok, where we had some acquaintances, who respected my father. And those acquaintances, they somehow took care that we find the way home."
"So he came from Prašivá to prepare the wood so that they could bake the bread, which the old men then carried to Prašivá. He came home - he was in the yard, preparing the wood for the kiln. A Russian partisan was going down the road - my uncle knew him, they knew each other, so he called him by his name. I didn't know how exactly it happened. I don't know what his name was. He called him. He pulled out a revolver and shot at my uncle. He shot him in the stomach and two days later he died. In the chronicle of Lúžná, it is written, that my uncle died on Prašivá. They were no fights there [at Prasiva], the Germans did not get there, nor did they bomb the village. Which valley were they supposed to bomb? They didn't know it! But that the uncle came home, that he was shot in the yard by a friend - a Russian [partisan], because it was a shooting! There are two small children left. "
Veronika Veselovská, b. Črepová, was born on April 27, 1936 in Liptovská Lúžná. Her father Peter Črep was a miner and his wife Otília worked as a farmer. Shortly after the wedding, Veronica‘s father went to work in a mine in western Europe and North Africa. He returned home only after five years, after which two daughters Veronika and Božena were born to the pair. The father of the family became blind in 1939 during the accident during the tunnel excavation and remained disabled. Almost all domestic and economic work subsequently remained on the shoulders of Veronica‘s mother and two young daughters. Ms Veronica‘s memories of the war are linked to family events. After the mobilization of the country, an 8-year-old girl had to accompany a blind father to a military report. On the way back, they both got lost. As a child, Veronika was confronted with the violent death of her uncle or with an escape from the bombing of her native village. Even after the war, their lives did not become much easier. For a year they tried to manage in Rusovce near Bratislava, later after returning home they had to deal with the removal of contingents and persecution by the local national committee. Today she lives in Liptovská Lúžná.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!