Jozef Vavrinec

* 1934

  • “In 1942 the Germans came. They came to Hlohovec and used to walk around the village when I was a boy. We were boys, so we would look out for the soldiers when they walked by the school. I don't know… we were on our way to school and I once asked for a penny, for the soldier to give me some German money. He lashed out and wanted to kick me. I jumped back and he didn't get me, I was already running away. And ever since, I did not like the Germans."

  • "The soldiers had a red crosses the train-carriages and they were transferring soldiers to the front line. From there they would carry on, they were still deploying soldiers in 1944. Those Rats [fighter planes] were shooting at the train that was heading to the Nitra river, where there’s this big ditch. The train went through that ditch, you could see it, you could see the smoke coming from that ditch [...] The Germans dispersed into the forest, into the water, into the fields, they jumped out of the train. There were no wounded people, they were only transferring the healthy ones. We then continued, because another locomotive had arrived to get the train to the station faster. Back then, shooting was not allowed in the stations. So they went and I guess they came from the ramps [...] There was a brickyard under the forest, and from there the locomotive didn't go any further, only about 200 meters, which was about 300 meters after those ramps. The brickyard was shot to pieces because the Rats had shot at it. The water started to flow, even one of the engineers was shot."

  • "They were digging trenches in Hungary, it was called Gýmeš there and here in Slovakia it was called Fegymeš. Then he ran away from there, and several more got away, and he came to Hlohovec. My older 18-year-old cousin came and told my mother to send me to the forest with a cart - we had this wooden cart that we used to transport, for example stones, in or [...] My mom went to the store, bought more, in order to have enough [. ..] It was a long way to the store. She bought groceries with that cart. It had shafts, it was like a hay wagon, such a small cart... So my brother and I went. I was eight years old and would go with the cart into the forest, behind the cemetery, to bring my father some clothes. She covered them up, so you couldn't see what was in the cart. She just threw some things in it. So I went. I was ordered not to tell anyone. Anyone could have betrayed him and they would have taken him away, and maybe us, too.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Partizánské, 15.08.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 02:11:53
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Already as a child I had to work hard

Jozef Vavrinec in 2020
Jozef Vavrinec in 2020
zdroj: fotografie byla pořízena při natáčení v roce 2020

Jozef Vavrinec was born on November 10, 1934 in the village of Malé Bedzany in Slovakia. His father Štefan Vavrinec was forcefully deployed to the border with Hungary during the war, but he managed to escape to the mountains and join the partisan movement. As soon as he escaped, little Jozef would bring him food and clothes. As the family had no male member of the family present and ready to help throughout most of the war, Jozef was forced to do a lot of work. He also illegally smuggled ground flour for his family. In a shoot-out between the Wehrmacht and incoming Soviet fighter planes, his life was put in direct danger. After the war, the family moved to Chomutov for work, but after his mother‘s death in 1948, Jozef returned to his grandparents in Slovakia in order to finish primary school. Later he got an apprenticeship in Slaný, as a turner. Here he started boxing professionally and won the title of regional champion in his category. He served in the military during the 1950s as a member of the Border Guards near Cheb, where he personally intervened in a case of illegal border crossing. Jozef Vavrinec stuck to his profession all his life. In the mid-1960s, he and his wife Veronika moved to Partizánský, where they raised three children and where Jozef Vavrinec still lived in 2020.