Anton Kašička

* 1935

  • "It was said that some German patrol or expedition or something like that would come, and that they would take men. So it was said in the village that when he learned that the Germans were coming, Imrich's father ran across our yard and shouted at his son - "Imrich, run, the Germans are coming to take the guys!" run up that stream. My uncle, he has already died, his name was Jozef Kašička, he was already up there with cows and manure, he himself was also exporting manure. So he told how it happened. First the German came to him on horseback and then he found out what he was doing, that he was carrying manure, so he left him alone. He went down, ran to that creek and those boys, shot one first and then the other. Normal. The uncle spoke. He brought boots from them, put them in the yard and the bloody water was flowing. I saw the boots and the water. Then everyone learned that Imrich and Adam had been killed. Well, it was terrible... That day during that raid, they took all the guys in Lehota that they found. My father was there too, I don't even know how much, but he was there for a very long time. Closed in Trenčín." 0:38:08 - 0:40:00 - The Germans killed two guys in the village and dragged the others to Trenčín to a camp

  • "Mom, for example, kept a partisan pig. They brought it and said - lady, you will raise this pig, we will come for it later. But that was normal, the partisans took care of that. That's how mom kept it and so on. They came, it was the criminal commando that was murdering everywhere. They killed the pig and took it and put it in a sack. The father was terribly unhappy about that, because he was very orderly and he signed every bag, such a large sack made of hemp canvas - Štefan Kašička, Čierna Lehota no. 143. And they took the pig away in that sack and then we learned what they were doing in those Lupenice. They killed about 20 people there. one tailor, they blocked his window with boards and burned it in a house in Šípkovo. The father was then afraid that if his name was on the bag and if it was partisan, that they would not return. Fortunately, they did not return.' 0:46:15 – 0:47:38 – Anton's mother kept a partisan pig

  • "Jewish families fled at that time. I know that the Jews who lived here also ran through our yard. But there were probably several families living here, because I don't remember the names of those who passed through our yard. But in short, nothing happened, no Jews were caught, no Germans. The Jews were saved and what about our Jews, our families who lived here. - so their house was there somewhere. But as long as they had the farm buildings, they lived there. Of course, the residents of Lehota took care of them, no one betrayed them and they survived the end of the war normally. It's true, those kids used to come to us." 0:32:27 – 0:33:40 - Jewish families hid throughout the war in farm buildings, residents of Lehota supported them, no one betrayed them

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    Čierna Lehota, 12.06.2021

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Bloody water flowed down the Bebrava and in the yard I saw the empty boots of the men who had been shot

Anton Kašička as a soldier military service
Anton Kašička as a soldier military service
zdroj: Witnesses archive

Anton Kašička was born on January 22, 1935 in Čierna Lehota. Father Štefan Kašička and mother Gizela had a small farm, father worked on the farm of the local Jewish family Weiss and Löwy. At the beginning of the Second World War, Anton and his mother were working on a large estate in the Protectorate near Znojmo. From there he remembers the Hitler Youth, the Nazi youth organization. After returning to Slovakia, the school in Čierna Lehota was occupied by partisans. They hid sacks of flour, clothes and shoes in the village. In mid-October, German troops invaded the village, burned the houses of Jewish families and also partisan supplies. The residents of Lehota hid and protected Jewish families until the end of the war. In November, the Germans invaded the village again, shot two young men and dragged about 30 men, including Anton‘s father, to Trenčín. At that time, 23 people were shot dead in the neighboring village of Šípkov. Partisans and German troops alternated in the Čierna Lehota until the end of the war. They also lived in the Kašička house. Towards the end of the war, the villagers experienced bombing and retreated to Šípkov for a few days. The village was liberated on April 7, 1945 by the Red and Romanian armies. After the war, Anton graduated from grammar school and continued at university, but did not finish his studies. He went to work in the Czech Republic on the German border, experienced the houses left by the Germans, and later enlisted in Olomouc. After his military service, he got a job in Púchov, graduated from an economics school and worked in Makyta. He also worked in a mine in Karvina for a year. He married and had two daughters. In 1968, he welcomed the political stances of Alexander Dubček and was disappointed by the subsequent development of politics after August 1968. In November 1989, he supported the changes, but did not agree with the division of Czechoslovakia. Currently retired, lives in Nitra.