"I also wrote regarding Filipek, in my own writing to the ministry. They also gave me an answer! They gave me two answers! There was the one who took his decree. Yes, I’ve got the letter somewhere. Why they're taking him from us. That if everyone lived as they preach, there would be paradise in this world. That prisons would not be overcrowded with criminals. I have kept it. I also asked them to write to me. First, they told me they would send a reply. Then they also wrote that he is irresponsible and that I don't know what else. "
"Then they gave us one too, Filipek. They came from the East, but there was already something - I don't know. Here they persecuted them. They were transferred here, but they found them here as well. So their permit was withdrawn, they could not preach. Then four of our citizens went to Prague to the president. But they were not admitted to him, they only talked to his first secretary. So, why did they withdraw them, that they did nothing wrong, and they wanted to build there when they were in the East, and the regime did not like that. They were probably repairing a church or something. And then they came here, but they did not call the priest, they just came to the municipal office. And then the citizens came together - we, women mostly, but also men, that they should say what was done wrong for the permit to be withdrawn. Well, they sent dogs on us, with batons! Then people left. "
"They bombed here on Vyšná, but it could be heard! We went to hide in the mountain. We ran away with my mom! What did we take? A piece of bread and whatever was there. And it was against the night, and we spent the night there. And in the morning the cow had to be fed, the piglet, too. Move down to the village. There were bombs, they killed! There is also a monument. I lived in Nižná and we ran to the mountain! Across the field a bit, and there was a mountain, there to hide. That if they fire on villages and houses, they will let it drop. But I don't know there, about two bombs fell on Vyšná. "
Zuzana Gazdaricová, nee Šavrtková, was born on April 18, 1932 in Liptovske Revúce, a part of Nižná. She comes from a family of Ján, a lumberjack and his wife Zuzana. She had brothers Emil and Ján, 11 and 8 years older, respectively. Shortly after the daughter‘s birth, the family suffered an accident when the father had a serious injury in the forest. At first, after a branch fell on his head, everything seemed fine, but after a year, he suffered complications and he died suddenly. The mother with three half-orphans had to try to raise the children. The brothers soon began working as miners, and Zuzana was left alone with her mother in the house. During the Second World War, the brothers enlisted in the army and after the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising, they joined the armed resistance. Zuzana, as a resident of the village, which was in the centre of events, has many colourful memories of the partisans, Germans and the bombing of Liptovska Revúca. After the war, she married Ján Gazdarica. The life of a young family was put to test by collectivization and monetary reform. In the 1980s, she stood up for the defence of the local Catholic priest Andrej Filipek, whose state permit was revoked. In addition to protests on her own initiative, she wrote a letter to the Ministry of Culture in defence of the local priest. Today she lives in Liptovske Revúce.
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!
