„The partisans left, but suddenly Pepo came to us. I don’t know where the other partisans were, but they liked our mother, because she learnt French at school, so she could speak with them, exercise her language, she had nobody to practice with. When Pepo arrived, his feet were frozen. Mother asked him: Where were you until now? And he replied: “One woman hid me in a barn where potatoes were stored for the winter. “ I don’t know how it’s called, but he was hiding there for three weeks. And when this woman went to take her potatoes, she brought him some food and milk. I don’t know whether his feet froze there. And when he came home, there was only one Russian woman in the hospital. She was wearing blue gloves, which she washed in the stream, hanged them, and then she started to work, she was cutting off frozen hands and feet with a saw, whilst smoking a cigarette. Thus, Pepo came to us, and my mother healed his feet with petroleum. Pepo never forgot that, and every time he visited us, he brought our mother a huge bouquet.”
„In 1951, they took everything from us. They even dismantled the mill! Father was sent somewhere away, and people stole everything like crazy. One was carrying the wide leather stripe, claiming he’ll use it for soles. So the Detvans dismantled it, literally. Then they opened a textile factory in a former barn, women were handknitting some textiles there, and father was allowed to be the director, but the communist didn’t like that either, so it was closed soon.“
„Father sent us to Kremnica during the war. We went there by train, hoping the war there would be less cruel. He sent my grandmother and me there. And the war wasn’t so cruel! But when the Germans were leaving, they set the church on fire. We were in the basement... the roof fell in front of our doors. Fortunately, one lady with her husband, she was named Pindurova, went out and announced we were burrowed there. So we went home, the trains did not go at that point, thus my father had to send a cab with Stefan Melich, who had been taking care of our horses and we rode home. I remember us passing Lieskovec, where many houses were destroyed by the bullets. I witnessed this as a child. We arrived home on April 17, my father arranged it on my birthday.“
Natália Krnacova, rod. Lassovská, was born on April 17, 1937, in Detva as the fourth daughter of the landowner Ján Lassovský and his wife Hilda, born Göllnerová. Living in the family of a successful entrepreneur meant that Natalie and her older sisters had received high-quality education at home, they held conversations with their parents in foreign languages, and had relatives in several European countries. That is also why the parents were convinced democrats, helping French partisans and local resistance groups during the Second World War. The life of the family turned inside out after February 1948, when Natalie‘s father was charged with being a kulak, his well-maintained property was soon expropriated. Ján Lassovský could not see how his life‘s work collapsed under the influence of unprofessional work, and in a few years, he died of a heart attack. His youngest daughter could not study at her preferred high school, and despite her talent, she worked as an ordinary worker in a machine factory. Despite the fact that totalitarianism forced Natalie to stop dreaming about visiting European countries and ordered her to forget the world languages, which she had mastered already as a little girl, she managed to find fulfilment in her life. She devoted herself to raising her own and adopted children, for whom she has been a loving mother.
