Imrich Močko

* 1920

  • “Back then it was before elections, right before the first elections in liberated Czechoslovakia. There were four political parties – Labor Party, Freedom Party, Democratic Party, and the Communist Party. We all, my friends, the notary, and the priest, were supporters of the Democratic Party, not the Communist one. One of the members, named Cina, was promoted to a staff constable and he called us to the tavern. Where else would we go in the village? So we went for a coffee, some shots and to eat something small. However, when we arrived, all the tables were taken since it was on Saturday. Only one table next to the stove was free, but it was heaped with some leaflets. We sat down and the commander moved the pile towards me saying: ‘Throw it in there!’ And so I threw it to the box near the stove. The barmaid, she was a Russian, reported that action and me to the Ministry of Interior in Prague. And can you believe that from the Prague´s Ministry of Interior there came a committee to investigate my case? Accusing me of what a horrible crime I committed! And so I just laughed at them. I told them: ‘Excuse me, please, but I only hope you know what it was. Electoral leaflets. Pieces of paper.’”

  • “Nobody knew whether he was being punished for something he would have committed or not. Simply, there was no excuse. They caught you, threw you into the car and you had to go to gulag. The landlady told me back then, there were app. 15 million people already dispatched like that by Stalin. And so when the Germans arrived, the Russians claimed, even it was horrible that way, nobody had to leave to gulags and could end up being killed at home. Then the lady said: ‘Come and pray with me in the room.’ So I went; in the corner there was a carved icon and an eternal light. She told me it was their church. Her face was covered with tears, poor woman. You know, I was 22 years old, but I also had tears in my eyes. Such condition, such human treatment was something dreadful. So here I came to realize what the real communism was about. I imagined it completely different. But then I saw communism and fascism were the worst things, what can exist in world. Those were the most terrible dictatorships ever.”

  • “Well, during the communism, the former Ministry of Interior, those were the hundred percent solid communists. When the coup happened, the Velvet Revolution, few of them resigned, and others left. They turned their coats over and dealt with us the same way as before. Catastrophe. In 1991 I received a rehabilitation decree, thus I was rehabilitated. But not that long ago, about two months ago, I sent it back to our minister. I asked him to place it in the mirror as I don´t need such a certificate. They were the ones responsible that, for over 40 years, I wasn´t a human in their eyes. What have I received for that? Alms? Not even a pension, nothing. So why did they give me such a scrap of paper? I don´t need that paper, I told them. You know, ever since that moment, when communism fell, none of their members had access to me anymore. If any of them came, I would never let him leave. I also remember that in times, when being the politically unreliable person, there was a State Security member from Topoľčany, named Benčík, who used to come and inspect me, too. He was so nasty, always drunk… My goodness, such people had terrible power back then!”

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    Veľké Ripňany, 03.02.2017

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I was not considered a human for forty years

Young Imrich Močko
Young Imrich Močko

Imrich Močko was born on November 15, 1920 into a peasant family in Behynce near Topoľčany. After graduating from the agricultural school, in 1941 he received notification papers and was enlisted in Nitra. In 1942 he attended a pyrotechnic training in Bánovce nad Bebravou. Half way through October of the same year he joined up the Slovak Army heading to Caucasia to fight against the allied forces. Yet after a short stay in Soviet Union, he lost all illusions of the communist system, what determined his further life journey. When his whole unit refused to join combat, all of its members fled to Crimea and later on to Slovakia. After a month long vacation Imrich refused to return to the army and, along with his friend, he ran away from the line-up through a small toilet window. He was offered a job at the Ministry of Defense in Bratislava, where he worked until the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising. Subsequently he was forced to hide at home in Behynce until the arrival of Russian troops on April 1, 1945. He joined the National Security Corps; firstly he assisted with displacement of Germans, and then studied at a school for members of the National Security in Banská Bystrica. He was transferred to eastern Slovakia, where he got a criminal record placed into his personal file for throwing away the communist party´s leaflets. He moved back to Bratislava and meanwhile studied at the school for officers in Litoměřice. In Bratislava he met with Ján Hajdúch and together they informed the British consulate on the progress of the restored Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union. In 1949, while Ján Hajdúch emigrated, Imrich was being interrogated. Shortly after, he was also dismissed from the National Security Corps. Only thanks to personal acquaintances, he regained the official document confirming political reliability. As a clerk he worked at the agricultural cooperative in Radošina. In 1991 he received a habilitation decree; however, he has never been acknowledged a war veteran, since the Slovak Army back in time didn´t fight on the side of the allied forces. In 2016 he sent the rehabilitation decree back to the Minister of Interior.