Ľudovít Sabadoš

* 1937

  • "This is how my father is arrested [uncle, note. ed.] Valer on February 5, 1945, it happened so that the Gestapo came to the barracks on the aforementioned Uršulínská Street and the warden called up from the gate: 'Mr. Lieutenant, they are coming for you.' Uncle immediately called aunt at our apartment, Avion. Auntie, poor thing, knew of about two guns. They were ready to be moved somewhere to help someone, so she quickly buried it under a large pile of potatoes, which were dumped on the ground in the pantry. Unbelievable, I remember that. There was this belt of ammunition, I don't know what it could have been for, everything was being sought to help someone, probably insurgents. So she threw it around my neck and put such a blue navy winter coat on me, I remember, and they were already at our apartment. My aunt and I were driven away, it could have been about 9 o'clock, and until the 4pm there was a thorough inspection of the one-room apartment. So everyone has a picture of how it probably went. As a child, I remember one thing, of course, a child is more sensitive to that sight, but I remember such incredible cruelty emanating from them; Also because of the way they dressed, they had their fur coats and their hats. But the behavior at all, you know, it's indescribable, it kind of stuck in my memory. And believe me, I gained a few years, I would say I'm old. Uncle disappeared, they locked him up in the Palace of Justice. I think we were given a permission twice to bring him a package, and we went could come take the laundry. It was such a custom at that time that the laundry was taken over and washed at home. I know and remember that the laundry was pretty bloody, probably from those interrogations. "

  • "And that's how we lived after a week, ten days - a great program, the leaders cared, we were very interested. And out of nowhere one nice early morning - it could have been four, half past four in the morning when we were all fast asleep. They woke us up, the StB came, we had to pack up. I know that we had to climb this steep hill with our own properties, and there was a bus on the road, into which we were loaded and taken back to Bratislava. That was the end of the camp. I know it concerned us all, they were happy to call up the parents to the Two Lions for an interrogation, where I had to say something about it. I didn't know what to say. At least my aunt spoke for me, well upset. My aunt was an energetic woman who told it straight, 'So please, you have dragged them here now, we are worried, I have my job, now what about the boy.' So she spoke very wisely, they could not tell her anything. And the poor man, in the place where we came to testify, our camp leader sat in handcuffs. They wanted to add something to the pile of accusations, and what they came up with was that he was organizing the camp like what we call gay today. So I didn't even really know what it could be. And based on that, I absolutely could not respond to that question. My aunt was put an end to it, outraged, what is this supposed to be, you ruined everything. My aunt had no patience for this. That was the end of our Sokol. Nothing since then, a year later there were only pioneers in school. "

  • "I did not understand any of it. As a child, I often accompanied my aunt, for example to this one dead end, now I do not remember its name, opposite the Two Lions. The street ends in a high wall and on the other side are Hurban's barracks. There were boys of the Slovak Army who wanted to get out of there at all costs, not all of them, but many. Escape and help the Uprising, which had broken out in the meantime. Through the high wall they got to the other side and my aunt and I went to the cellar, I could still show you which cellar it was, the one between the latticed part and the wall, we stuffed it with civilian clothes. The next day we went there again and disposed of the uniforms. They changed clothes and, as they stood, then of course got more easily into the zones they needed to get to. These were forms of illegal work. Of course, it was definitely controlled by uncle Valer, and his wife did what he told her or asked her to do, and of course it was a great cover, because I was small, and when she was pulling me somewhere, we were less conspicuous. "

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It is my life‘s debt to pay tribute to my uncle who was assassinated in Mauthausen in April 1945

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zdroj: Archív pamätníka

Ľudovít Sabadoš was born on June 19, 1937 in Gán and from the age of three he grew up in Bratislava with his uncle and aunt, who are still a father and mother for him. Uncle Valér Kubáni was an officer in the Czechoslovak Army and after the establishment of the Slovak Republic he served in the Slovak Army. He and his wife were involved in the resistance - little Ľudovít accompanied his aunt in smaller activities, such as helping defectors from the Slovak Army, who wanted to join the partisans. Valér Kubáni was arrested on February 5, 1945, and Ľudovít subsequently witnessed an hours-long home search of the apartment by the Gestapo. Uncle was imprisoned in the Palace of Justice; Ľudovít also witnessed the loading of prisoners into trucks in front of family members and their transport to the Bratislava main station. On March 31, 1945, Ľudovít‘s uncle Valér Kubáni was deported from Bratislava together with another 100 political prisoners to the Mauthausen concentration camp and immediately upon his arrival, on April 10, 1945, he was murdered in a gas chamber. After the war, Ludovit remained with his aunt, although his parents still lived in Gana. In 1948, efforts to obtain information about the fate of the transport were interrupted, as there were no witnesses or written records from Mauthausen. After liberation, Ľudovít engaged in scouting, but in 1949, StB invaded the summer camp, disbanded it and the children were immediately taken home. After returning to Bratislava, the ŠtB interrogated the children as well. Ľudovít graduated a chemical high school. He lived with his aunt until her aunt‘s death, and later Ľudovít‘s parents moved in with them. He was successful in several workplaces, especially in research. Thanks to his work in the Camping and Caravanning Club, where he held the position of chairman, he traveled to the West several times and visited the Mauthausen Memorial a few times on the way home. Since the circumstances of the last transport from Bratislava are still not sufficiently researched and the society has in no way shown respect for the murdered, he has been engaged in its own research for five years, with which he wants to pay tribute to his uncle‘s memory.