"As for my childhood, it was quite sad. I was born in twenty-three and my dad was seriously ill. He fought in World War I, he was in Italy during bombing and so on, and was injured. But being a young man, he was coping with it, so-so. Then he got married, and when I was two years old, he died of the consequences. I was left alone with mum. My grandma was still alive. There was no job, so mum went to work for a Greek Catholic parson."
"The Hlinka Guard members often said, 'Yield, you will not be harmed!' with loudspeakers in the forests. Later we learned that some people who wanted to save their lives were shot on the spot. It was not easy. In fact, there was no way to yield. And we were this team, a group of fifteen - a team leader and a paramedic, and we would raid villages at night. Communication was available there, and there was always something to eat."
"They started transporting us in early April. On foot, everything on foot, tens and hundreds of kilometres. And whoever fell, was shot and thrown in the ditch. No mercy. Via Hof. I remember being very hungry. There were those heaps there, and as a village boy, I thought those could be potatoes, covered with straw and clay for the winter so they wouldn't freeze. So two from our group tried and they were shot on the spot."
"Of course there was a mowed lawn with haystacks. All of a sudden, a Focke-Wulf appeared, a reconnaissance flight, went round a few times, and then left. After some time, two bomber divisions came and bombed the lawn. They thought that soldiers were hidden there, but we were in the hills. It was very fortunate, because otherwise they would have buried us there. And then, of course, tanks. I think I destroyed one. I am not sure because they were a bit distant. And I was not the only one there, there were about five gunners there."
"We left at night in trucks. Where are we going? Deputy commander said, towards Vrútky. And another part of the air force school left to the other side. It started on the twenty-ninth. Our big disadvantage was that we were deployed at the foot of a hill, and the reconnaissance was such that it failed to notice mine launchers and a machine gun nest on the top. They could just wait and see us climbing the hill, and then hew us down. And that's what happened eventually."
Colonel in Retirement Ladislav Havrišák was born in Pčoliné in eastern Slovakia on 10 September 1923. His father, a legionary of World War I, died when he was two years old, after which his mother and brother raised him, with the help of the local vicar who also arranged admission to a high school in Prešov for him. He joined the Slovak Army on 1 September 1943 and served as a paratrooper. In 1944 he participated in the Slovak National Uprising with his garrison, and operated a machine gun and an anti-tank rifle. When the organised military activity ended, he joined the guerrillas. A Nazi troop arrested him and transported to Auschwitz and then to Gera and Hof. When Germany was liberated by US Army in 1945, he came back to Slovakia. He stayed in the army and served with the Air Force, first in the Poprad training centre and then in Vysoké Mýto and in Šahy (near Hungarian border). He also served with the technical air force division in Piešťany and Brno. His latest point of service was Hradec Králové, the birthplace of his wife. He was the head of the foreign wing and air reconnaissance group. Ladislav Havrišák died on 27 February 2021.
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!
