"God, when they got out of Bojnice! For those lice, we had to throw everything away and clean it! Those lice were probably like that ... so big! For God sake! I've never seen such lice in my life, what those soldiers had, poor people! Who was already covered in too many lice, had to undress and they gave him clean clothes. But they also had supplies for that. "
"And suddenly the partisans fled from the deer-park and he knew where we lived. He came to us covered in blood. We gave him a suit from my brothers. Dressed him up, washed him. When everything calmed down a bit, mother said: Well, Gejza, and what shall we do now? Will you stay with us, or what? He replied: No, I won't, Mrs Hanzelova, I will go away as soon as things calm down a little. And he left in the evening. He walked from us to Simonovany with all those wounds. We treated him at home because he had an injured hand, he was bleeding badly and he looked horrible! But we took care of him and the in the evening, he said, he must to go"
"I remember when they bombed Prievidza, I was 20 years old. It was horrible! Mines flew from the direction of the Calvary and fell onto Lúčky, where we lived. How many times did my mother say to me: Step aside! Look what's going on in the yard! The mines, the Germans were throwing onto us, screeched. It was horrible! We had a bunker in the garden and we hid there."
Mária Ludiková, rod. Hanzelová, sa narodila 7. januára 1922 v Bojniciach. Pochádzala z mlynárskej rodiny Štefana a Anny, rod. Fantúrovej. Mária bola najmladšou z detí, mala ešte dvoch starších bratov, Štefana a Ladislava. Už ako 9-ročná sa po smrti otca stala polosirotou a spolu s mamou a bratmi sa v detstve musela snažiť privyrobiť si a ekonomicky prežiť. Od mladého veku pracovala ako pomocná kuchárka na bojnickom zámku či neskôr v tamojších kúpeľoch. Život dospievajúceho dievčaťa zásadne zmenila druhá svetová vojna. Na vlastnej koži zažila nútené práce pre nemeckú armádu či nemeckých a neskôr sovietskych vojakov ubytovaných v tomto hornonitrianskom mestečku. Spolu s mamou pomáhala partizánom a aj napriek tomu, že – ako tvrdí – bola veľmi bojazlivá, počas vojny si viackrát zachovala charakter a zásadový postoj. Po skončení vojnového konfliktu sa vydala za Štefana Ludika, s ktorým sa jej narodili štyri deti. Mladá rodina zažívala nepríjemnosti kolektivizácie a prenasledovanie zo strany miestnych úradov. Jej život je až dodnes naplnený mnohorakými aktivitami a spoločenskými udalosťami.
