Michal Hronec

* 1935

  • "That we actually returned to the lap of our homeland, but we remained the Slovak minority in these villages, and so far it is. And it was a voluntary or,…? Yes, more than one hundred thousand Slovaks from Hungary volunteered to relocate, but only seventy thousand came here, because many, even though they were already written in the list of the respective transport, which was to be loaded into a train set of freight wagons, or railway wagons, so two , three still from this list remained there, they did not move, so they will not come here. So the trench, or the decision to leave, wasn't that easy, because they had lived there for eleven generations, which is 250 years. And it's hard to leave… you have parents buried there… as far as I know, a sister stayed there, my parents stayed there… It just wasn't that easy, even though they decided to leave. But… but those who left,… I think, they did not remake in any way, because we really remained Slovaks. Because those who stayed there - according to my statistics, since 1910, according to Hungarian documents, after our departure, after 1904 - 300,000 Slovaks, today there are about seven to ten thousand Slovaks in the census. Everything has become Hungarian. This is the tragedy of Slovaks living in Hungary, but nothing can change that. And did your parents talk about it in your family? There have been some debates, right? No, no. My father thought very bravely that we would go. Mom, no, she was so resigned that if you want, we'll go, if you don't, we won't. However, we have both a house and land, and so on… but why. But father… ”I want all my children to go to school and here when they go, they will only go to the hungarian ones. Let's go mom! ” So they decided, this is how it went with us, such a decision. And we really went and my father really kept that word. ”

  • "Of course, the mining of the fact that they are in Hungary was felt only in the fact that the municipality - only a person of Hungarian nationality could and did work at the municipal office. If one of the Slovaks wanted to work like, let's say… Postman, for example? For general bulls… Because not everyone had breeding bulls. They behaved in the municipal office. If he wanted to be the caretaker of these bulls, he had to change his name. For example, if his name was Kančok, they changed him to Hungarian in Kancsó. And when he wanted to be a cop… Thus, the gendarme was one and the cops were the other, because at that time it was like this… well, but as in our country it is divided that there are cops and these… and the second group. So there was also… who was a gendarme, there could only be a Hungarian. That is, all the gendarmes who served in and around the village. And the police officers, who distributed all sorts of invitations from the municipal house and supervised the order in the village as far as the streets were concerned, and so also if they wanted to do such a function, Ondrej Hirka, for example, had to change his last name to Herendy Andráš. Then he could perform this function, but he also had to learn Hungarian. So the Slovaks and our ancestors eventually survived this mining there. I'm not exaggerating this because when I was growing up to the age of five, they also put me in kindergarten, where we were trained in the Hungarian language in the afternoon. They just hung a plate, a spoon, a knife on the wall - we sat like children - and I had to repeat it twenty times, plates and plates - and we really remembered it when we repeated it twenty times. And when we ran out into the yard, to ventilate… so there were ladies, i.e. educators… but they also had to make a surname, for example, there was one of my family who was called Čemanová and lived to be 104 years old, but she had to change last name and her name was Cseteová. She could not wear her original surname Čeman. And when they walked between us and we flew around the yard like five-year-old boys and here and there, however, we immediately started speaking slovak, because I didn't have to speak to anyone in hungarian until I was five, nor did I know hungarian. That's how we usually get slapped. "

  • "And his father was in his service at the age of ten. Until he was twentieth, he was, he was still a servant, or in fact he was a shepherd, then he was a farmer, and then he was like a farm worker. He knew how to manage… that is, digging corn, mowing and so on. So that's probably how my father lived. And my mother lived with my grandfather, who had returned from the war. She got a stepmother with whom the two children came, so it was already a family of four. Then a common girl was born to them, who died as a child, I don't know. So the grandfather raised these tiny four, four children. And then my mother got married when she was less than eighteen years old, she still had to get a permit from the municipal office in order to get married. Because youths used to go to such old ladies or "nannies", we called it… who were mostly widows. This is how they made a living by renting the front room to the youth. The young people went there to have fun, some girls went there to sit. Well, the young men went to choose between the girls and here and there someone played such a musical instrument, we called it "tambory" and so they danced. Well, and always a girl or a boy, when he chose that boyfriend, he told the old lady who organized the meeting to the youth to whisper when the concerned person went home, to tell this person to go to her because she wants to talk to you. ! So then, they met, talked, arranged a date, and then most of the time marriages were formed. In addition, in richer circles… in circles of large farms, larger farms, they went there for courting. The parents got married and agreed on who to marry or whom to marry their daughter to, so they went to ask. But for the poor so much, these kinds of marriages didn't work. So our parents met like this… my mother said that when she saw my father, she said to that “widow”, as we called it… that “hantirke” ’, in our dialect dictionary,“ He will be my husband."

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„We returned to the bosom of our country, but we remained a Slovak minority - I‘m still sorry, but it‘s true.“

Michal Hronec was born on June 11, 1935 in the then Kingdom of Hungary, in the town Slovenský Komlóš or otherwise called Slovenská Chmelnica. Mother Anna, as single Rafajová, grew up only with her father, as her mother died when she was two years old. The father of Michal Hronec, was four years older than his mother. After his father‘s death, the family remained very poor. He had no choice but to immediately work for the farm he had spent the next ten years with. Michal‘s parents got acquainted as very young, the so-called date organized by local elderly ladies, mostly widows. The wedding took place in 1934 and after Michal, three more siblings joined the family. Life in the Slovak Komlóš was very good, except for the desire of the Hungarian nation to become united. In practice, this meant that Slovaks were not allowed to work, for example, at a municipal office or in other official or administrative positions. There were only two options. Either the person had to be Hungarian or he had to make a Hungarian surname and, of course, speak the Hungarian language. Michal felt it especially in kindergarten or school, where they only learned Hungarian and were not allowed to speak Slovak. His parents, for example, felt it at the municipal office when they wanted to process applications. If they did not speak Hungarian, they could not do it. Without this, life in Hungary would be very good, as the country was fertile and the family never went hungry. After the Second World War, in 1947, Michal‘s family was relocated. They were in a transport that headed to Galanta, then continued to the village Kajal, where they got a house after three weeks. Even though they had returned to their homeland, they still felt like a minority, as many locals did not accept them best. The trip lasted two and a half days. In 1950, Michal left for Bratislava where he became a carpenter‘s apprentice in Montostav. Unsatisfied, he wanted to become a mason‘s apprentice, but was accepted to an industrial high school, so he no longer continued to make a decision. Instead of Bratislava, he had to study in Prostejov, Czech Republic, until 1955. Subsequently, he returned to Bratislava, where he obtained a job in the Czech Republic as an assistant at the Regional Hygiene Epidemiological Station. However, he worked there for only two months because he was called up for compulsory military service. Michal joined Galanta, where they decided to be placed in Litomerice, as sapper. Admission to the national company Pozemné stavby Bratislava followed. At first he worked again as an assistant, but after a year he became the construction manager of two large buildings. In 1960, Michal married a deeply religious woman. It was no secret that Michal and his father were members of the Communist Party. He later became the director of a plant for five years, from which he was fired for allegedly violating intra-party democracy. For the next three years, he became the head of the technical development rationalization department in the corporate directorate. There he received an offer for the director of the construction of the house of trade unions, which he carried out until 1981. After privatization, Michal became a consultant and later, after a change of owner, a production deputy. He worked in the company until 1999, when he was fired. After 2000, Michal became a construction foreman at a friend‘s company, and later also helped young boys learn technology. At the age of 84, he ended his construction career. The memorial even followed the writer‘s career and wrote a saga of the family, which he published under the title „Unwritten Memories - My Father‘s Dream.“ He also collected verses from his birthplace, which he grouped together in the book „Behind the Bigger Sky“. He is currently a member of the Association of Slovaks from Hungary, and also works in the Geological Association of Slovaks from the lower region.