Štefan Habovský

“They took us to the local authority, into one big room. We were called to come upstairs one by one. There was a committee of policemen and of others, and there they interrogated us. What we were doing, how we were doing it and so on. I don’t know, what exactly happened upstairs, but when about three people returned from the upstairs, they were crying. However, if they were beaten or what happened, I don’t really know.”

“When the situation subsided, the municipal authority ordered to search the fields and burry dead soldiers, if found. Not far from Trstená I found a German. He was naked, undressed, not wearing anything. He had maybe more than 50 pictures strewn around him. There was a trench and we buried him inside. We went on, but there were also older men with us youngsters, maybe six of us walked together.” “So it was the municipal authority that had sent you?” “Yes, the town hall. So we went further app. one and a half kilometer and we found another killed German in the bush. He was also naked, wearing only the wedding ring. They told us to go on and look further. They simply drove us off. I don’t know, if they broke his finger and took the ring or not, but we had to leave. When we found another dead body, we buried him and so on. As we proceeded towards Liesek direction, we found a Russian. He was normally dressed, including grenades or automatic. We took the grenades and played with them as kids.”