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Michal Wagner had a mine nearby, where they mined painters' clay. It would be then ground up and sold to painters as pigment. My father dug a tunnel above the shaft, where we could hide in an emergency. You couldn't stand up in it, but it had benches dug into the walls, on them hay, and you could sit there. You could even sleep there. It wasn't cold in there. Mr. Wagner also helped us a lot. When we needed to send someone a message and things like that. He behaved quite insolently, which was an advantage during those times.
In time searches in the surrounding area became a daily occurrence. That's why we decided to go to the cottage that was further away, at Havran. Alexy's villa had two cottages in the yard. One was for trainee painters, and in the second lived the gardener and his family. We occasionally met in that gardener's cottage, and sometimes also slept there. The gardener's wife, Mr. Pelikanova, used to help us. The trainees were two young painters, during the war lieutenants in the Slovak State army. They'd both deserted from the army. One of them was Josef Dubravsky, who after the war lived in the town of Soporna, and the second Ladislav Snajdar from Piestany. Ladislav Snajdar rode horses and was the connection between us and the partisans. But mostly he stayed with the partisans. Leading up to the cottage at Havran, there were I'd guess about a hundred steps. The steps were quite high. One morning I went to empty out the basin I'd been washing in, and suddenly I looked and saw an SS helmet and heard a metallic clodding. A guy with a submachine gun was going up the stairs. There were four of us hiding there, my father, brother, I, and Alis, who was taking care of us. She cooked for us, did the laundry and so on. That was in October of 1944.
In time searches in the surrounding area became a daily occurrence. That's why we decided to go to the cottage that was further away, at Havran. Alexy's villa had two cottages in the yard. One was for trainee painters, and in the second lived the gardener and his family. We occasionally met in that gardener's cottage, and sometimes also slept there. The gardener's wife, Mr. Pelikanova, used to help us. The trainees were two young painters, during the war lieutenants in the Slovak State army. They'd both deserted from the army. One of them was Josef Dubravsky, who after the war lived in the town of Soporna, and the second Ladislav Snajdar from Piestany. Ladislav Snajdar rode horses and was the connection between us and the partisans. But mostly he stayed with the partisans. Leading up to the cottage at Havran, there were I'd guess about a hundred steps. The steps were quite high. One morning I went to empty out the basin I'd been washing in, and suddenly I looked and saw an SS helmet and heard a metallic clodding. A guy with a submachine gun was going up the stairs. There were four of us hiding there, my father, brother, I, and Alis, who was taking care of us. She cooked for us, did the laundry and so on. That was in October of 1944.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ladislav Urban