Jozef Horváth

“Well, the shooting began on Main Street, but I think it was the day after the August 21, 1968. He wasn't in Slovakia; he studied playing the trumpet somewhere abroad. I met him near the Zlatý Dukát hotel and I told him: 'Laci, don't go, because they are shooting there.' In the meantime, we spoke together about how he was and where he studied… 'Come back.' Because some shots were fired 'for fun' into the air. I don't know whether you know where Zlatý Dukát is, but he walked that way and when he happened to be at the place, they began shooting on the Main Street. He wanted to hide in the premises near Tuzex, in the yard. He was about to run in and hide, but he didn't make it. I just saw how he got shot a few times. I can still see it today, how he was struck and fell down. I think he didn't die immediately, but later, after the ambulance came. You know, then such a chaos erupted, the people were falling to the ground, running away after what had happened. Everyone was trying to run away to not be shot.”

“I used to serve at the altar as a Franciscan. We had a group named Young Franciscans. We were wearing Franciscan robes, but only in the church, up by the altar. Once the policemen took our abbot, it was sometime in 1956 – 1957. They took him and we never saw him again. We had to take off our Franciscan clothes and that's when I became the biggest anticommunist. But you don't know why. When I undressed, they took me in front of the church's gate and I was scared to death. They dragged me there, I fell on the sidewalk, scratched my hands and everything. That's when I began to hate the society I grew up in. We were attending also religious education until the 9th grade as kids, but our father had many troubles because of that. He was even investigated by the State Security as a man saddled with religion and the whole family as well.”