Ján Novenko

“Because it also happened, you know, twice in fact, that we had to intervene. [A woman] came and claimed she’d been raped, and so on. Well, she provoked him, you know, she’d embraced him and I don’t know what else, so you can imagine, and they gave him alcohol, so what could you expect... Then she found out he would be shot because the penalty was death, for these kind of things. In the army, I mean. In Czechoslovakia it was strictly forbidden under pain of death. [Q: Were you also witness to soldiers stealing things from people?] We were under very strict scrutiny, but don’t forget that the Second Ukrainian Front was called Ukrainian according to the region it traversed... but people were of all kinds there, and the army was made up of criminals, you know, and they were given the chance to redeem themselves by fighting well and behaving decently. But you know how it is. Look at all the things going on today – in a time of peace. And back then? It was war.”

“[Q: When you joined the front in Fiľakov, you received a uniform, but it was winter at the time. What did you wear? Did you have winter clothes as well? How did you sleep? How did wait out the bad weather?] Oh, we had all kinds of things, but we had to endure it all. Wherever we could, in houses - because it wasn’t just us. The Germans did it, the Hungarians did it - all soldiers did. In fact, often enough they’d chase the people out of their beds and lie down in their place. Well, and because there were also various people who fled from the front and so on, lots of places were louse-ridden, and so our people were sometimes afraid to even lie in the beds, so they often [didn’t]... And as for bed covers, well first off, winter cloaks, right, and a fire, if there was fuel to burn. My staff sergeant, who’s with me on the photo here, he had to look after me. As for weapons, I had a revolver, with a cylinder, like that, then I had an automatic, and then I got a rifle, which was pretty light, long-ranged, and even had a scope. And depending on where we went, I asked what I should take with me. As for my civilian clothes, those were all packed up, and we were assigned two or three wagons with horses and coachmen, where our things were stored. But we also had a lorry, but that was for other cargo. Those were things we needed to have at our direct disposal. And I was even told, when the Germans counter-attacked, I was told: ‘Ivan, if by any chance [the Germans got through - trans.], there are various documents in this vehicle, it also has a fuel tank, so just set fire to the whole thing and make sure it burns up.’ Otherwise, like I said, they considered me an eighteen-year-old, and when they found out I wasn’t, he said: ‘Don’t blab it out to anyone!’ I can’t even remember how it was, in what way, if it was in a letter from my dad, where he noted something with regard to ‘your young age’. I received the letter in Slovakia. All the letters were checked. I wrote home too, and then a friend helped me write so there wouldn’t be things there that weren’t allowed... our location. That wasn’t just us, that was on every front... the letters... because that was secret information.”