Karol Hetteš

* 1930

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  • “I have never been anywhere in my life, only at home and at military training. And when we came to Libavá, I cried: ,Where are we?´ Such a situation... . I thought we were coming to the barracks and we were soldiers. And here some: ,E classification!´ What is it? What classification? And we had training without a weapon! Because they did not believe us and could not give us weapons. They didn´t consider us like normal people! And even if Stalin hadn´t died, we might have found ourselves in Kamchatka, in the Gulag.”

  • “I have never been anywhere in my life, only at home and at military training. And when we came to Libavá, I cried: 'Where are we?' Such a situation... . I thought we were coming to the barracks and we would be soldiers. And they gave us some 'E' classification! What is it? What classification? And we had training without a weapon! Because they did not believe us and could not give us weapons. They didn't consider us like normal people! And even if Stalin hadn't died, we might have found ourselves in Kamchatka, in the Gulag.”

  • „That political officer too! He told me: 'And what about your father? He did anti-state activity and disagrees with this regime!' I said to him: 'Leave him alone! He died and why he died I didn't tell you!' That was terrible as we were persecuted. Especially me, because I stayed at home.”

  • „We were in the mountains when the front passed, beyond the village, in the mountains. We were there on horses. We took something with us for eating, especially bread, and the whole village was moved there. We were there for four days when the front passed and then the Russians came. My father stayed at home, but we were all there. We had bread baked in the oven, we also cooked and made the shelters there, I remember that very well.”

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    Trstín, 29.01.2019

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Nice word is always better than an anger

Karol at technical auxiliary battalions (PTP)
Karol at technical auxiliary battalions (PTP)
zdroj: archív pamätníka

Karol Hetteš was born on 7th February 1930 in Trstín. He comes from a peasant family, he had four siblings. After World War II he worked with his father Ondrej on a family farm. When the Communists came to power, Karel‘s father was arrested in October 1950 and sentenced in December for alleged outrage. He spent five and a half months in prison and died in May 1951. In October 1951, Karol received a call-up papers and had to enlist in technical auxiliary battalions (abbreviation PTP). After a three-week training in Libavá, he mined in a Petřvald shaft near Karviná for 26 months. He got into civilian life on 25 November 1953 just because he committed himself to work in the mine. After returning home he had a hard time getting a job, moreover he found his family farm devastated. After some time, he managed to work in a quarry in Buková, then worked for eight years as an agronomist in the Uniform agricultural cooperative (abbreviation „JRD“) in Trstín and finally, until his retirement in 1990, again in a quarry. He currently lives in Trstín.