“Don’t cry, mom, I’ll surely come back.“
Jozef Bobalik was born in 1928 in Lukov, near Bardejov, Eastern Slovakia. His father was a forest worker and his mother worked in a household. He was their only son. In 1938 his father left to America where he died tragically. Jozef along with his mother and her two brothers stayed in Lukov and helped at their farm. Becauseof the option he and his family left to the Soviet Union, hoping they would find a fertile soil and a great wealth there. However, the opposite was the truth. They were deceived and lied to, because the people who lived there (Czechs) desired to come back home as soon as possible.When they realized the conditions they were about to face, there was no way to return. Jozef wanted to study, but the situation was very complicated. His suffering began in 1948 at one of his friend´s bachelor party. There an armed and uniformed member of Ukrainian nationalists, who called themselves Banderas, made Jozef to read a leaflet saying: „Death to Stalin". Few months later he was captured and sentenced to spend 10 years in prison. He spent one year in the prison in Dubno and after the sorrowful journey through Kiev, Charkov, Novosibirsk, and Tajšet transits he worked in labour camps Ozerlag (Siberia), Magadan, and Usť-Kujga.
