Filip Paulech

* 1929

  • “We had to work under a horrible terror. When our trolleys were empty, we had to run back to the place of excavation. And of course, the rails had such couplings and bumps. As we were running along those rails, we hit the lump and derailed the trolley. There were just two of us and we didn't have enough strength to lift the trolley back on its rails. The lieutenant being a commander of the company took out his gun and screamed, 'I shall shoot you like dogs! You think you can sabotage it here? You are politically unreliable, so when I shoot you, nothing happens!' That's what he yelled at me in Czech. He was an officer who supposedly came with General Svoboda up to Prague. They liberated Prague and then he happened to be the commander of our company. His name was lieutenant Terelia.”

  • “During the winter, when we were going to work, I got tonsillitis. I had high fever. In the barracks there was a doctor, so I went to see him. I got a paper from him stating I had to stay in bed as I had fever. So I walked from Plavecký Mikuláš back to show it to my commander. Then I lay down. There were about six or seven of us having fever in the room. We didn't come to work the next day, since we had it confirmed from the doctor. The commander came to our room and began yelling: 'You darn rogues; get out of here right away! Get down from your beds and start the fatigue duty!' It meant cleaning the halls, toilets, sweeping the courtyard, etc. While having the fever. So this was how they accepted if someone was ill. From those times I have chronic throat inflammation lasting my whole life. That's where it began.”

  • “The communists took over and those, who were founding the communist party in Moravany, those were the worst possible jerks of the world. For example, one was a goat shepherd and his name was Konečný. He had more children and lived quite immorally. He had a child with his own daughter and so on. Back then, I was already a youngster and there were elections of members into the local national committee. It was a public meeting. I heard that they were going to appoint even the shepherd Konečný to be the member, so I spoke out he was a thief robbing granaries, being imprisoned several times. I just asked how the village can be represented by a man who cannot maintain his own household. When I began grouching, others continued. Then after the meeting, a party's secretary stopped me and said: 'You just wait! We shall remember when you stood up against us!' I asked whom I stood against and he replied that against the party, thus they shall have remembered me. So they remembered when writing an evaluation report on me, on a faithful man going to church. That this way I was just making fun of the communist party and the like. So I received such a bad personal report from the village, according to which I then had to enlist in the Auxiliary Technical Battalion.”

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    Trenčín, 09.09.2017

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Communists chose the worst village jerks as their representatives

Filip Paulech - photo from student time (1948)
Filip Paulech - photo from student time (1948)
zdroj: z archívu pamätníka

Filip Paulech was born on May 1, 1929 and he spent his childhood in the village of Moravany nad Váhom. When he was nine years old, he lost his father, thus along with his siblings, he had to help his widow-mother to live by farming at the homestead. Once during an election meeting of members of the Local National Committee he interfered against morals of a communist party candidate, what caused him to receive an evaluation report of the communist enemy. Based on this fact, in years 1950 - 1952 he had to take part in penal military service in units of the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP), which dwelled in inhuman labor and harsh treatment of superiors. This permanently affected his health. In later years, as an experienced tailor, he became the head of custom production of Odevné závody Trenčín (Clothing Factory), where he spent the majority of his working life. Currently he lives retired in Trenčín with his wife, Helena Paulechová (née Duláková).