“My greatest experience was smuggling goods from Slovakia. There was a miller, a Moravian, and he owned a mill. There was a Moravian who owned a sawmill. There was a man by the name of Kapsa, a Moravian too. There were many Moravians there. I would cross the mountains to Drietoma. They filled my backpack. They gave me Vlasta cigarettes, and one or the other gave me bacon. The miller gave me flour, sometimes bread. The four men who were there would fill me up on goods, and I would criss-cross the mountains. I herded cows in Bedová, in our meadows. We used to mow hay for Sirotný. He gave me goods several times too; he was a Slovak yet an honest man. He had a meadow there, and I let my cows graze there too. One man from Kostelná had his cows there too, but I didn’t go to Kostelná. So, I would go and my dog herded the cows and sheep for me. I went with the goods. I would always wait for the German patrol to pass; they used to meet at the summit. Then, one patrol went towards Liešná and the other went down to the border. That’s where the guards used to change. At that time, there was nobody up there, so I would run across.”
“Even a German come to my mum once. A commander; he asked whether they would win the war. Mum says: ‘You know what? You’ll find out when Russians beat you.’ – ‘Will we win or will we lose?’ – ‘Be happy if you stay alive!’ She said no more. He started screaming. She said: ‘Is it my fault that you attacked a nation such as Russia?’ He nearly wanted to shoot her, idiot.”
“She would also treat people using herbs. When she healed someone, they started to believe she was good. They spread the word of mouth, and people would come to her. She didn’t ask for money. They would ask how much, and she replied what her grandma had taught her: ‘It will be as much as you give me. I cannot ask money of you. It will be as much as you give. It wouldn’t work if I asked for money.’ And so, she accepted what they gave her.”
Jozef Gabrhel was born in a secluded settlement between Starý Hrozenkov and Žítková in Moravské Kopanice on 8 February 1932 as the second son out of seven children. His mother was Irma Gabrhelová who today is believed to have been the last Žítková Goddess. The Goddesses were women who used the powers of the local herbs to treat various diseases, healing dislodged joints and broken relationships alike. They also practiced love magic and prophesied the future using wax and cards. Jozef smuggled various goods from nearby Slovakia during World War II. After the war, he left for Brno and trained for a bricklayer in Židenice. He then worked, among other places, in Jáchymov’s mines, buildings tunnels and drifts. He married Mária Blažejová in 1955 and they settled in the Slovak community of Drietoma, eventually raising five children together. His mother Irma died in 2001 and the family sold her native house to the Mizera couple who intended to rebuild the crumbling house into a weekend cottage. After Kateřina Tučková published her novel, Žítkov Goddesses, they turned the house in to the Last Žítková Goddess Museum. Jozef Gabrhel died in Drietoma on 1 June 2022.
