Michal Kalina

* 1943

  • "And where and when did you start attending elementary school? Well, it was like this with me that ... there was still a brother four and a half years younger. Well, but the older brother and sister, these older ones... were already going to school... and I was just a little kid. I ran to school once, I must say so. Well... there was a smaller bench, they called it... those who didn't listen, so what... so I went to the donkey bench. Well, it wasn't a donkey's bench for me, because I went and sat down and learned. As they wrote on the board, so I wrote to myself. I taught myself to write. And then, that teacher... he was the rector, that's what they called the rector. So he said: "What about him?" And mom tells him that he goes to school himself, so let him. OK fine. " But that was for half a year, for half a year. At the end of the year, well… everyone got a report card, they got papers. That's how it was... in that period, it was handwritten... the originals came later, they weren't printed. Like the original, which was the report card, yes. Well, I'll never forget it, because at that time they were just baking bread and putting it out of the ovens outside, and the last dough left outside was a piece of cake. They put this...into the burnt-out furnace, so they also put the joists in the oven. Well, but now ... say it like I said it then, or wrap it up a bit? How you want… Sorry? Say it easy. Well, then they boasted and brought the seniors' certificate, and mom just as they said: "Well, cavalier, what is it... you go to that school, and where do you have a certificate, where do you show us... what do you show us, what kind do you have report card you?" And I said that to hell... if I have to say, to hell, I won't go to that school again. Well, that made me resent school a little. Only... then, when I already... started school properly, everything changed."

  • "When... when there was a war, the Second World War, and when... then the Romanians came, when liberation was already underway... the Romanians came and among them were some Russian soldiers, so the commanders were Russians. And I know that the Romanians also fought against the Soviet Union back then, but then everything went wrong and they joined their side. And so they then fought with the Russians, with the Soviets. Well, there was one... as they mentioned... as they mentioned that one... On the stairs, as you entered the house and there was a door, there was such a hole. And we, as children, always fiddled with it and used our thumb to poke the hole into that hole... into that step. And then why is it there? And one... of these two Russians who lived with us, one was really so polite and intelligent. it was possible to talk with them... with him, really, because he understood Slovak well, our people could talk to him. The other was such that he wanted no one but himself. And there was a duck in the yard, he took the rifle and he shot the duck... he shot it with a cross and the hole left by the shot remained there... what was I saying, what did we keep talking about... Well, mom had a mug on the stove, it was boiling water and he took the duck and put it in the mug. Well, of course, the water splashed outside, just steam and my mother asked him if that's how it's done and hit him on the back. Well, she told him properly that he then wanted to shoot my mother. And if it wasn't for the fact that... a little bit of cleverness, and again the fact that... he understood Slovak well and could communicate well, he would have told him one thing: "We are not in Hungary now, nor in Romania... we are already in Czechoslovakia, and now if this woman went to complain to the commander, do you know what punishment was given? The punishment was written in such a way that if we harm women... or people in Czechoslovakia, that it will be such a punishment that you will be shot. Come on, think about whether you will continue to behave like this or change your behavior." Well, but somehow after that he arranged it, as he was more intelligent, so mom didn't have to go to the commander or anything, because he arranged it so that he was transferred."

  • "Well, he was like that... that he was also a frontman. The last ones... he was like a soldier, and he remained a soldier by profession. Well, and she says well come... he came to visit, there was a killer party... but of course, also a big feast, a big feast... And this is how he sees me running around there. And he like this... when it was over and when... and when..."Mom, what do you say about your son?" What did he do... He didn't do anything, but I would tell you one thing that if you put him in a military school. " Wow. Then to the military school... Well, I don't know, let him decide. And I, as a ten-year-old, had to decide whether I would become a soldier or not. But... she brought the application, her parents signed it... as a sister... my parents signed it, I signed it. Well, and then it came to Košice, to the military hospital, for a check-up. For a tour, well. That's how I was at that time, when we went to the theater from school... it was organized in such a way that we went to the state theater. We went to Košice for some shows and so on... and so on. But then my father went with me to Košice, and they were more knowledgeable, they knew Košice too. They knew because they were so down... well. We need to go to that building, to that building... I can read, but what are we going to do there. "Don't worry, just be quiet!" Okay... So we came to the gatehouse, gave the paper and immediately said that you have to go up to that floor, and the number of the door. Well, we came there... there in uniform, but in a white coat. Yes, you are fine, sit down here now. I have some soldiers there. And then I heard, simulant. That... I haven't heard this word before, that's when I heard it for the first time, because they were still sitting... they were sitting on the bench, some of the soldiers like. And everyone, "chr chr chr", grunted worse than I do now, but... and then he comes there, he went outside that you don't have to wait. And these shriveled, but I heard the word for the first time, and I will never forget that it shriveled, it shriveled. So then, I also asked that... I didn't understand the word. And "chr, chr, chr", so they cried because they croaked, right?"

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„A man who breaks up a village team... and his son is supposed to go to military school?“

Witness Michal Kalina, 2023
Witness Michal Kalina, 2023
zdroj: Photo by Dominik Janovský

Michal Kalina, a native of Henckovce, was born on March 21, 1943, into a straight Slovak family, as the third child. His parents, Ján and Zuzana, raised him and the other three siblings in more modest conditions, but they never lacked for anything. The families of both parents were peasant families, with a Lutheran faith. His immediate family, having witnessed various local situations from the time of the Second World War, decided to share some of their memories with him over time. Little Michal officially entered the elementary folk school in 1949. However, this entry was preceded by attending a local school of his own free will. As he himself said, since he had a younger brother who needed a lot of attention, he sometimes ran straight to school. This initiative of his lasted half a year, but he learned a lot during that time. They went to school in Nižná Slaná, where local pupils could attend only the first five classes. He could influence Michal‘s future when he was only ten years old, joining a military school. In the end, he did not become a student of the military school. Word spread around the village that his father had left the unified peasant cooperative, so letters regularly arrived home saying that the son of a person who deliberately breaks up the cooperative has no business in such a school. In 1957, Michal thus became an apprentice at the secondary vocational school in Rožňava, specializing in tinsmithing. Later, he completed compulsory military service. Although he enlisted in Česká Třebová in 1962, he was allowed to study for ten months in Nitra, at the school of automotive specialists. After two years, he returned to Rožňava, where he worked at a construction company. He met his future wife, Eva Germanusová, for the first time in the bank where she worked. They were married on November 11, 1972, and later their family grew by two daughters, Michaela and Eva. After problems at a construction company, he decided to work as a foreman at a land school in Poprad. He worked there until he retired at the age of 60. Michal was part of the Communist Party, and he was forced to leave it before 1989 due to many problems. As he got into an open conflict at school with a teacher who wanted to give a student a five for his behavior just because he wanted to become a priest, he realized that he could no longer be silent.