Jozef Hanko

“We arrived to Jáchymov, the first thing: one of them came shouting, and he immediately yelled at us: ‘Do you see that board over there? Two men were shot yesterday when they attempted escape. When you attempt escape, you will be shot and your names will be written there as well.’ From there we walked, in double rows again, to the camp. The camp and the corridor was ready, we were accommodated there, this was the beginning. They threw some rags for us there, we had to undress, undress completely, during one interrogation, then during another, being naked was unnecessary, there they gave us some old army clothes which were no longer used, you could see the collars were greasy and smelling of sweat, it’s terrible to think about it, you know. And they were always shouting at us: ‘Sentenced criminals, come here!’ This was the only way they addressed us. ‘Sentenced criminals, come here!’ Thus we began in Jáchymov, and on the New Year I went down the mine for the first time - we replaced the Germans, who were to be sent home.”

“I opened the door of the hospital where I was hospitalized and in front of me there were two men sitting on two stools. ‘Who are you?’ I asked, ‘What do you want from me?’ ‘Who are you?!’ they shouted at me. ‘I’m Hanko.’ And one of them immediately pressed a gun to my forehead. The other pulled out handcuffs and they bound my wrists. With my hands handcuffed we went to the prison, and there I waited for one or two hours for the express train to Bratislava. There were two of us with manacled hands; I did not even know them. Then we went on this express train to Bratislava, to jail, I spent three months there. They put me into a cell, and Dr Pozdech was there with me, they were even bringing him lunch in there. I saw he was getting a better treatment, favours, they brought him lunch, and I got the ordinary prison fare, or rather nothing, since I still wasn’t able to eat because of my tonsils. I could not swallow yet at that time. I asked them that I was supposed to get a throat gargle, that I had just been released from the hospital, it was twenty-four hours after my surgery, and I haven’t even gargled. One of them, he was probably a Jew or what, thus brought me a little vial that I was supposed dissolve in water. And do you know what kind of water it was? There were basins, into which you poured water from the tap and then you scooped it with a cup. I put a few drops in it, but it did not smell of anything, I gargled my throat with it and I felt even worse. And then I tasted the contents of the vial and it was pure water. They only played a trick on me. In order to get rid of me.”

“I was called to the command, there were loudspeakers in the camp: ‘Hanko, number this and this, report to the command!’ I went there and an offer was made to me to collaborate with them, for I was a foreman, I had friends, and they asked me to exert some influence on them, and that if I cooperated this way, it would then be possible for me to be released and go home. They were using such incentives a lot. And there were people who came and told us plainly: ‘Yes, I did sign it.’ Or we would find out that there was an informant among us. He would say this to gain our favour. So I was called to the command, there they offered me they would let me go home if I began helping them: reporting to them if the inmates were up to something, what they talked about, who criticized the political regime most, and so on. They were keen to know these things, so they made this offer to me. Naturally, I refused. I told them: ‘Just see to how many people you have already offered this, how many of them even signed it, and still they are not being released.’ I came back to the camp: ‘Well, Jožko, what did they want?’ ‘Well, you can guess, collaboration, obviously. Should I sign the hammer with which they beat me, should I now lick this hammer on top of that?’ This was just ridiculous. For the hope was really very small. And half an hour later after I had told this to the inmates in the camp, my name was called again. Up there they already knew what I had said, and that they forbade me to talk about this offer, to tell it to others. In just half an hour, somebody from our room, I don’t even know who it was, reported it, and they already knew it. I immediately went to the hole, as it was called. And there I was receiving only half the amount of food for two weeks, and I had to do the mining work as usual. Mining, without proper clothes, and with half the food for two weeks. Only for having told that I had refused the offer to collaborate.”

“My cousin, Doctor Milan Hanko came to me, he held a doctoral degree in philosophy and he knew Hodža, Ursíny, and he was generally favoured by and acquainted with the politicians of the time, he talked to me and persuaded me to go to Košice, and so I went. I founded a distillery there, we were doing very well. The beginning was very good, till the events of February 1948. The February came, we started the production, sharing the profits, but he began to be attracted to the nationalization of property, saying that it would be better to work for the state, serving the state, already in this socialist spirit. I saw that this was the end for me, this had no future – to be employed and to give over everything, they would get it lock, stock, and barrel, so I resisted and said that there was nothing good in store for me there, and that I would most probably go to Australia. Such were my plans, to go to Australia.”

“They started interrogating me. Being rough right from the beginning, with beating and shouting. It was in a room, and I heard others screaming there before, and now I was screaming as well. They asked me about this and that person, and about my family, friends, about what I had told to whom, whom I had promised to go abroad, they made me kneel on a kind of a chair. I did not know what they meant. Two or three took me by force, shouting: ‘Kneel down!’ One of them distracted my attention, as I was turned towards the back of the chair, and as I was kneeling, with bare feet, the other started beating me with a baton, with full force, beating me over my soles, and my feet became so swollen, and they turned blue as if they were covered in ink.”

“The way I see the state of political affairs then is that they wanted to arrest us in a smart way, to eliminate us and to scare off the rest, so that not a single one of us would dare to conduct some anti-state activity. They staged show trials and they tried twenty-eight of us together. They prepared a huge judicial process; there were headlines in the newspapers: anti-state activity. I was among the first ones, second, third ones, who were charged with having organized an anti-state group because this Mišo and these ŠtB members were trained to charge as many people as possible with Article 5 and Article 1. This stood for high treason and espionage, and the penalties for this ran ten years and more. For when we then met in Jáchymov and we were asking each other how they got there, under what circumstances they had been tried, we found out that the worst thing was if you were sympathizing. It was enough to have some affinity. They were calling on people like this, and they got so much information from them that it framed them sufficiently to have a reason to be arrested. And these policemen were then awarded for doing this, and the more people they got behind the bars, the higher was their pay.”

“There were two wagons, and about hundred and twenty of us were pressed in them. We went to Jáchymov. We had to march out on the market square in Leopoldov, there was a row of them and we all had to walk, nobody was allowed to step out from our triple row. At first in double rows, then in triple rows we went, there were more of us, and they walked on the left side, armed with guns on the right side. Whoever steps out of this triple row will be shot. So they led us into the wagons and from there we travelled to Jáchymov.”