Branislav Tvarožek

“When the Slovak National Uprising broke out me and teacher Tichý from Modra took a complicated journey towards Banská Bystrica. At first I hadn’t known what to do there but my uncle Tomáš Tvarožek, member of the national committee, was staying there. Thanks to him both I and my cousin got to a university watch unit which was supposed to guard generals Golian and Viest. This is where we underwent basic training because all of the troops there were young guys – students. The suppression of the uprising came up; terrible mess taking place at Donovaly. Two airplanes stood there intended for Viest and Golian but an order came to destroy them. All of our unit marched in the direction of Kozie chrbty and beyond. Various people joined us there including probably those who reported to the Germans because every day we exchanged fire with them. Only later – I don’t know on which hill that was – did we get to a valley where we witnessed a heavy shootout with the Germans. We returned up to the hill into the mountain pines where we stayed up until evening. A heavy patrol of about a hundred Germans went past us on the hilltop. We had orders not to intervene. We waited them out but as they passed on, they left telephonic cables behind. Later at night when we marched, I noticed those cables already isolated in plastic – unlike the Czechoslovak or Slovak army ones which would have been the classical ones made of rubber and cloth. So they had probably followed us already back then. We entered the valley where we had a break. I was ahead as a sort of a patrol. There were more of us like that. Suddenly, I realized that I was detached from the main group and that they had pulled back. I stayed there on my own and this is where I was eventually taken captive. I don’t know where generals Golian and Viest along with some commanders got detached from the group but the Germans had later also captured them in the mountains.”

After about a month we were moved from Ostrov to the shaft called Eliáš. There we spent about a month. Then, we were loaded onto trucks and driven about three kilometers away where there was a camp called Rovnosť. When we got off the trucks, the German prisoners who had previously worked there got in them. Then, we also moved to the same barracks. We were divided into groups. I got to the eighth floor. I used to load metal boxes, which were then covered with quarried stone which was poured into the mining wagon.

Slovak National Uprising came soon. I decided to get involved and thus I became a member of the university students’ guarding division. You know, there weren’t only university students, even though they comprised the majority of all members. We were called general Golian’s and general Viest’s guarding division. Then, after the suppression of the uprising, we went into the mountains with them. Aircrafts that had been prepared for the generals in Donovaly remained unused and were destroyed. We had daily clashes with the Germans. After few days the Germans knew a lot about us. Therefore, the generals Golian and Viest with their group decided to separate from the rest of the division somewhere above the Sopotnická dolina valley and attempted to escape. Unfortunately, it did not happen. They were caught in Bukovec in a forester’s house. Our division was gradually dissolved and liquidated.