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The morning of 24th October, we went further. My father was aiming towards Brezno and the Low Tatras. As we were descending towards Cierny Balog, my father stopped at the house of one game warden, talked with him a bit, and then we kept on going. When we’d gone about two kilometers, we met some people coming from Cierny Balog and Brezno, and they told us that the Germans already had Brezno, and were now pushing towards Balog. My father turned the truck around, stopped at the warden’s, they came to some sort of agreement, and he took us into his game preserve and hid us there. The warden’s name was Jozef Vojtko. After the war he received an award from Yad Vashem [19], ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ [20].
So on 24th October we got into the care of Mr. Vojtek. He supplied us with bread and his wife even sewed some ‘kapce’ [shoes made from canvas]. We lived in three various chalets, one after the other. The first one was about 150 meters above the valley’s narrow-gauge forest train tracks. After my parents once saw a German army patrol in the valley, my father camouflaged the cabin a bit, a tall tree stood in front of it, but we didn’t stay there long after that. We moved further on, deeper into the woods. In the second cabin we were once burning wood that wasn’t dry enough, and at twilight the concentrated smoke was quite visible as it was rising up into the sky. So the Germans fired about seven shells in our direction from the road. They were aimed directly at our cabin. We had incredible luck, because the shells only hit the tops of the trees. Then my parents immediately put out the fire, and we didn’t start another one for another two days.
When the villagers began coming for Christmas trees, they discovered us. That why on 1st January 1945 we moved to the third cabin. There I also heard very loud shooting. When the Germans were retreating before the Red Army from Tisov through Cierny Balog, the partisans halted them before Balog and shot a large number of Germans. This took place on 26th or 27th January. Precisely on 1st February 1945, we returned home, to Utekac. To the same Utekac apartment that we’d left. Dishes, pots, furniture, everything was still there. The apartment hadn’t been looted. At the beginning of April we moved to my grandparents’ house in Kokava nad Rimavicou.
My parents spent the whole war in Slovakia, but it was very complicated. During the time of the transports from Slovakia, my father was for a certain time the only member of the family to remain in Utekac. He sent my mother elsewhere as well. For some time she was in hiding in Banska Bystrica. How did my father manage to save the family? In the first place, his business didn’t represent competition for anyone, because he was the only one in Utekac. His ability to communicate with people was another very important thing. The third was the he had the means and opportunity to bribe people. My father, rest his soul, always used to say that sometimes a crown is a hundred crowns, and sometimes a hundred crowns is a crown. You need to know how, when, where, to whom, and mainly to use money in the right place.
As far as family members go, my mother’s sisters Melania and her husband and Edita perished in a concentration camp. The same as their brother Ernest. On my father’s side they murdered two brothers, Vojtech and Mikulas.
So on 24th October we got into the care of Mr. Vojtek. He supplied us with bread and his wife even sewed some ‘kapce’ [shoes made from canvas]. We lived in three various chalets, one after the other. The first one was about 150 meters above the valley’s narrow-gauge forest train tracks. After my parents once saw a German army patrol in the valley, my father camouflaged the cabin a bit, a tall tree stood in front of it, but we didn’t stay there long after that. We moved further on, deeper into the woods. In the second cabin we were once burning wood that wasn’t dry enough, and at twilight the concentrated smoke was quite visible as it was rising up into the sky. So the Germans fired about seven shells in our direction from the road. They were aimed directly at our cabin. We had incredible luck, because the shells only hit the tops of the trees. Then my parents immediately put out the fire, and we didn’t start another one for another two days.
When the villagers began coming for Christmas trees, they discovered us. That why on 1st January 1945 we moved to the third cabin. There I also heard very loud shooting. When the Germans were retreating before the Red Army from Tisov through Cierny Balog, the partisans halted them before Balog and shot a large number of Germans. This took place on 26th or 27th January. Precisely on 1st February 1945, we returned home, to Utekac. To the same Utekac apartment that we’d left. Dishes, pots, furniture, everything was still there. The apartment hadn’t been looted. At the beginning of April we moved to my grandparents’ house in Kokava nad Rimavicou.
My parents spent the whole war in Slovakia, but it was very complicated. During the time of the transports from Slovakia, my father was for a certain time the only member of the family to remain in Utekac. He sent my mother elsewhere as well. For some time she was in hiding in Banska Bystrica. How did my father manage to save the family? In the first place, his business didn’t represent competition for anyone, because he was the only one in Utekac. His ability to communicate with people was another very important thing. The third was the he had the means and opportunity to bribe people. My father, rest his soul, always used to say that sometimes a crown is a hundred crowns, and sometimes a hundred crowns is a crown. You need to know how, when, where, to whom, and mainly to use money in the right place.
As far as family members go, my mother’s sisters Melania and her husband and Edita perished in a concentration camp. The same as their brother Ernest. On my father’s side they murdered two brothers, Vojtech and Mikulas.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Tibor Engel