Dominik Slobodník

* 1932

  • “If somebody at the upper end of the village shouted that the Germans were approaching, partisans immediately took to flight from here. We used laugh at them. They headed down, towards the river where there was a playground. In such hurry, they were losing everything they had; I mean various magazines of their automatics and the like.”

  • “After the war, there were no communists in our village. And people who took over the power used to disparage us. Actually, our village was the first in Banská Bystrica district to be burnt down. In 1946 there were elections and communists didn’t win. I don’t know, they got about 5 or 6 votes and there were 1,000 inhabitants in our village. Since then, we were scorned. Communists used to say that we were like a republic in the republic. If there were elections or something like that, we never supported it.”

  • “... It was necessary to feed them. You know, there were many soldiers, about 2,000 (men) especially in Donovaly and in Priechod... and we had to feed them, we had to! If we had refused, they would have come and used their methods. There were young boys among partisans with the Russians who even didn’t speak Russian at all... One of them usually came, leaned his machine gun against man’s chest and said: ‘Davaj!’ Suddenly they spoke Russian. Then, we had to give them everything we had.”

  • “Well, when the uprising was proclaimed, everyone moved into the mountains. But then, about two weeks later, it was said that nothing would happen to people, who would return home. So then, people flocked home; I remember it was raining and everyone walked being wrapped in canvas. Everyone found their way home, because it was impossible to live in mountains if people had nothing to eat, if they had no supplies.”

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If Priechod had been burnt down, the whole resistance would have been over

Dominik Slobodník
Dominik Slobodník
zdroj: Michal Ďurčo 2015

Dominik Slobodník was born on August 29, 1932 in Priechod. His parents, as the majority of villagers back then, had a small farmstead. However, as his father wanted to earn some extra money, he also worked in a well-known diary called Wittmann producing „bryndza“ cheese in Zvolen. The whole village as well as the Slobodník family went through the war period very peacefully. However, everything changed after the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising in August 1944. After the retreat of rebels into the mountains, partisans settled in Priechod and they often forced villagers to supply them with various things. As the German troops wanted to eliminate such supplies, they burned down the village in February 1945 and transported men from the village to internment camps. Fortunately, Dominic‘s father managed to escape, so the family didn‘t incur health injuries, though their house and farmstead were completely ruined.