"During the Second World War I went to school in Bratislava. At that time, the Americans landed in Sicily in the forty-third year, and bombed the Czech Republic and Slovakia. When there was an alarm, we quickly ran out of school. When Bratislava was being bombed, there was no alarm. The siren sounded, we ran out and the bombs were falling. A bomb fell 100 metres from us, but it didn't hit us. The technical school was only 100 meters from the Danube by the big bridge. We got two days off and then we had to go back to school. We were bombed three times in other places. There was a big petrol refinery in Bratislava. As we came out of the school, a bomb fell, we ran out, it was three or four minutes, the petrol station was already on fire. We asked the professors and they told us it was unbelievable. 190 people were killed that day. They had great spotting scopes, they had good aerial photographs, and they often circled over Bratislava, then they aimed and fired. Most people died in and around the petrol refinery."
"After secondary school graduation I was employed for a year at the post office and was in charge of radio transmitters. One big transmitter in Prešov was under construction and I was there as a supervisor. One of the installers, Mr. Kovář from the company Rádio Slávia, was making the equipment. One day he said to me: 'Mr Kodrík, let's go and see Dukla.' But nothing would go there. But we found out that sometimes a truck would go there. After 14 days, we managed to get permission for the truck to take us there. We got to the village of Vyšný Komárnik. We found a place to stay there, and one of the locals allowed us to stay overnight. The next day we asked where the fighting had taken place. Everything was ruined, damaged, cannons, tanks, trees cut in half. As we walked, there were trenches and in the trenches there were signs saying Caution, mined! There was also a Russian tank there, and we went to see it and we went inside. Then we ran down the hill where it was standing and the ditch underneath was full of water and signs everywhere about mines. We prayed together, and the good Lord saved us. The locals told us that just a day ago a girl who had been herding cows and stepped on a landmine, had a funeral . Later on, it was normal to go to Dukla, various legends were invented. I wrote a report about it, they took it to the post office and I got a lot of praise for it."
Julius Kodrík comes from Bánov near Nové Zámky. He was born on 7 February 1926 among seven siblings. His father, Imrich, was a free thinker and democrat who, after a conflict with his parish priest, left the Catholic Church and continued to educate his children in religion himself at home. He instilled in them not only the Bible, but also the basics of spiritualism and the principle of an intelligent universe. Julius Kodrík has therefore been a believer and a practising spiritualist all his life. Under the name of Spiritista, State Security also kept a personal file on him from 1975, which dealt with possible contacts in the West, anti-state articles and membership in a spiritualist circle. The file was archived in 1981 due to lack of evidence. He graduated from university in Bratislava, and while studying he visited the Dukla Pass shortly after the battle. After graduating from university he moved to Uherský Ostroh, where he and his wife lived in his father-in-law‘s photography studio. From a young age he was also a radio amateur with a licence, but the communists took it away. He became an aeronautical engineer at the MESIT company in Uherské Hradiště, where he worked as a development manager until his retirement. Throughout his life he was an active member of Sokol, interested in astrophysics, herbalism and philosophical-religious problems. His wife was the mediumistic art draughtswoman Vlasta Kodríková.
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!
