"It was not possible. They did not know how it will be. Let the Lord take care of it. And the next day, so 28th we still had almost a full day, that we prayed in the chapel, let the Lord take care of how it will continue, as will those promises. And the next day in the morning occupied the building. They came, whether it was from the militia or security. Those were their people. Occupied the gate, gatehouse, they occupied the phone. They moved among us, no one may go out, no one may come to us. To superiors they told that there will be a bus and 46 sisters have to board. For that many it was with the vows. And now they did not count and did not speak. So we did not know what. What will become of us now. And superiors also could not decide. They had no one to consult with. And I then asked our novice superior - after all tell us. You're not huddled together, you did not ask the Church what to do? She said - yes, we asked the Lord bishop. Mr. Bishop said - when they were with you when you were good, although we have not seen it well, because it was still too, so let endure now."
"How many young people decided to go for Christ, he asked - and you change your mind, what to expect and where to go? For those already took vows to be sisters, not on St. Augustine, but before. But first May A first May you remember how it was. So also in Presov those marches and already the shouts, throwing crosses away. Here's promenade. Our sisters gather what they found. Christ was actually already dishonored. It was already hard. And the screams we heard directly into the chapel. And you ask - and now you decide to go for Christ? And when I see that worried face, so I said - yes, if He loved us so much that even to death, so are we. When death awaits us, and so we're going to die with Him."
"So now they began to divide. Even taking into Bohemia, to the factory. They said - we thought that when the sisters gather in a pile, they will mind, argue and separate, leave. But nothing, so what? So now to the factories, the fields, the woods, do hard work. After all, they flee, because friars do nothing. And when we put them to work, they flee. So now we had to go to the factory in the Czech Republic, but those directors of the factory, they asked for medical check. They want healthy people to the factory. Of those, how many we were there, so the three were able to work. Doctors determined in this way, only three. But shortly thereafter, I know that even these had severe diseases. And thus they split. Then the priests manage somehow that there manufacture was moved from Presov to Spišská Sobota. And now, that plant will go to Ivanka pri Nitre. Then the sick, the doctors acknowledged that go into Vrbove. And the old ones, that is the oldest and sick to Beckov."
Sr. Pavla was born on Septmeber 20, 1928 in Rokycany near Prešov. She entered religious order in July 1943. At the time the order was called the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As a sister after the first vows, she began studying at the teachers‘ academy. Since it was already known about the violent dissolution of male religious orders, she has been assigned to the sisters to school to keep the sisters together. On August 29, 1950 she was forcibly exported from the monastery in Presov to Spišská Sobota. There she worked in difficult conditions, which resulted in her poor health. Later she was transferred to Ivanka pri Nitre. Later she started working in a factory in Báč. Under communism, secretly she took care of the youth. She gave religious retreats and spiritual exercises. After the fall of communism was returned to the monastery in Prešov. There is a picture on the wall where the sisters signed their faithfulness to Christ in their own blood. In this house Sr. Pavla died in 2009 on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, patron saint of Slovakia.
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!
