"A German came who surrendered, threw away the cartridges and the rifle. The Russian came up to him and gave him a terrible blow and asked him why he was surrendering. He says that he has absolutely no one left, that they all died in the bombing. And the Russian tells him... One of them translated for us, who knew both Russian and German. Such a clever old man. And he says, even to me, I don't have anyone, I have everyone... Then they took him away and we, as boys, followed them . And they also shot him near there. Well, you know, it leaves such traces. Then we had to... One more thing like that. It's interesting enough that we all had to go down and dig trenches. Outside the barracks. And we they coincidentally had such a long bank from the barracks. So we had trenches dug there. So there was my father, grandmother, me and my brother. So we had to crawl down there. But I couldn't do it, so we climbed out, walked, ran. As boys. After all, I was eight years old, almost nine. And at once we saw... The Germans were already in the village and there was shooting. It was not unusual to hear shooting or bombs or something like that, grenades. And at once we saw such wires, there were some, so I simply cut through that one wire. We also had... No, we cut it with a knife. And I didn't even know that I cut the connection with those Germans."
"I was an ambush fighter. So we kept twenty-four-hour shifts in cash. And there we took turns in twos. And when the situation was aggravated there were four. And when the siren sounded, I immediately had to go to the "airplane". Within a minute I had to take off. It was just the way it was, everything was already set up next to the track. Everything was just set up, I didn't have to do anything. And that's it... When I was at Námešť nad Oslavou, there was a border zone twenty-five kilometers from the actual border. And we it's just... We were picked up many times when someone from Austria was near that zone, so the cash had to start. So I did it countless times, maybe a few dozen times. And then either the person in question came back, who disturbed it, or we would they had to force him to land. That meant waving, we had all kinds of signals for that. And if he didn't, I'd have to shoot him or what do I know. But we don't like that, because he refused to shoot for it in Pilsen, because he saw in the cabin children. So they kicked him out of the army."
"The worst were the bad politicians and "kontráši", counter-intelligence. They were lurking, they also followed my wife. They knew when she went to church. And that was very dangerous then. But they threatened me that we could destroy you in a month! And now... that Jožinko say hello! He's calling me. Just a friend. And I just don't hold a grudge over time. I've never taken revenge on anyone. I've always gotten away with it and quite often, even now, we sometimes go out for a beer with those who we didn't like each other very much. Why did he threaten you? That the soldiers turned their antenna to Austria when they gave the verbung. I say and what's wrong with that? It's not... Or simply that one of the walkers arrived late. Or that I returned it, I had the right, that I returned the military book to the soldier who was supposed to serve over Christmas. But what kind of nonsense is this? It will only cause harm. It can cause some trouble, it can... Just soldiers. It doesn't matter no effect. So I called the soldier and I say, please go straight home. Don't do something to me on the way, because you and I will take it... So I gave... And they noticed such things. Or why didn't you tell me that your pilot went off the runway there. And you didn't tell me. And why? It's none of your business."
Jozef Moravanský was born in Pečeňady (Piešťany district) on January 31, 1936. He went to elementary (folk) school there during the Second World War. He saw several people shot, hearing gunfire and explosions was common. He had one brother and a sister who died of whooping cough at the age of four. In 1947, he started studying at the grammar school in Šaštín. In 1948, he went to secondary school in Veľký Kostolian, which he graduated in 1951. He applied to the junior officer school for the air force and in September 1952 joined the war in Kremnica, where he graduated. In 1954, he entered the preparatory school and a year later transferred to the aviation school in Prostejov. He graduated from school in 1957 as an air force lieutenant. They took him to the army combat unit. He started in Čáslav, then the regiment was transferred to Náměšt nad Oslavou. There he worked as an ambush fighter in the border zone near the border with Austria. He was later transferred to Sliač. He got married in 1965 and moved to Přerov with the whole regiment. In 1984, at his own request, he was transferred to Piešťany. For half a year he went to Přerov to train the Libyans on MiG-21 fighters. In Piešťany, he was a squadron commander for foreign students. He retired in 1991. He had all functions, including squadron commander, he was also an instructor. As a squadron official, he flew to Poland, Hungary, and Russia, where he learned maneuvers on MiG-21 fighters, such as the removal of an atomic bomb or bombing during special maneuvers. During his career as a pilot, he saw many colleagues die. Several times he himself found himself in danger. He stayed in Piešťany. He had two sons, a grandson, a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. Jozef Moravanský passed away on August, the 16th, 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!
