“Beňadik lies on one side of the hill, then there is a valley and from the other side there are other hills again. Those hills behind the river Hron were occupied by partisans and when there were fights between Germans and partisans, we suffered for it. The first thing Germans requested from us was to start digging trenches. There was a train station, a meadow and from the side of the station, meaning also from the hillside, we were supposed to dig the trenches. So all the guys being eighteen already had to come there, they measured the area and divided us into groups. We dug for about half an hour, but behind the river Hron there were partisans in those hills. There was also a mill, where they had a machine-gun nest. When we were already positioned and we began to dig, suddenly we could hear shooting of heavy machine guns as they were fired about 20 meters above our heads. We threw ourselves on the ground, but they lowered the gunfire, so then they shot only about 2 meters above the ground. In the meanwhile we tried to get through the railway on all fours. Yet only after being protected by a building from the other side we stood up and started running home, and this way we didn’t dig anything.”
“Right after my ordination I went to our centre in Miletičová Street and those were times when the situation of antireligious tension from the side of the Communist Party began. It was also a political tension between the Democratic Party and the Communist Party. These tensions gradually intensified and led to coup d'état during which in February the Communist Party forced president Beneš to resign and even before that, it made him authorize the communist prime minister Gottwald to govern the country and other ministries. So then communists took over the most important ministries as was the Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education, etc. The Party got all those ideological ones and at the same time it got majority of all other ministries, so practically it became the ruler of all.”
“Partisans had mortars and they began firing. They knew that just next to our institute, only about 30 meters away, there was an ungraded school. And there was a seat of about thirty Germans. Some Beňadik’s residents, some of them being communists, were informing partisans on Germans’ activity. So the partisans knew the Germans were there and they wanted to attack them with their mortars. However, the school was too close to the other big building. There was a five-storied granary, so when they fired a little higher it all went into the fields and if they fired down, it was us who were hit. They bombarded like this three times a day. In the morning at four thirty we lay in beds and the mortar shells whizzed above our heads. Then at about ten – ten thirty for the second time and in the afternoon at about five, they fired for the third time. This way we got the mortar shells. We had a study room from the side of the hills and we were afraid so that the shell didn’t get in. Therefore we sealed off the windows with sand bags to the top and also priests who lived there put the sand bags everywhere and boarded it all up.”
“Then they called us in groups of twenty – thirty people at about eight or nine o’clock in the evening to the monastery canteen. There they gave us a cup of black coffee and one slice of bread; then they put us to a room and locked us again. We were locked during the whole night. When one wanted to use the bathroom, he had to knock as the policemen were guarding on the halls. The guard led him to the bathroom as being in jail and then he brought him back. This way we spent the night. When we woke up in the morning, they let us go to church at app. six o’clock. The church there is quite spacious. When we came there we saw it was full of religious men and it was only us missing. So all of the religious who were in this concentration monastery were allowed to come to church in the morning and attend one mass, which was celebrated by one Redemptorist priest. When we came, they already sang songs from the choir. I think those were Verbists from Nitra singing; we received the Holy Communion and then in groups of twenty we went for breakfast. The breakfast lasted until 10:30 am. Just imagine that if 300 people had to take turns in groups of twenty, then when those who got breakfast first, at 10:30 am began to receive lunch already. Lunch started at noon, it ended at about 14:30 and then at 4 o’clock it was dinner.”
“During the bombing a five-kilo bomb fell on the neighboring house. It got to the third floor, exploded there and destroyed also the air-raid shelter, which was down. Half of this shelter fell on those people. We were in another shelter; we could feel the vault bending, plaster falling behind our necks, as we were cowered there. The only strong ones in spirit were a former inspector don Válado from Yugoslavia, who lectured theology at the university in Turin, and a Slovak, don Taliga being a director of the university bibliotheca. They often ran upstairs and as soon as something blew up, they screamed and comforted us: ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, we are still alive’. When the bombing ended, all of the ceilings in the two-floor building were ruined. There was our bedroom and it all laid on our beds, all those bricks and everything. All the windows were just like dust, frames and doors were completely knocked over. No one wanted to sleep, so we went downtown. There were bombed out about fifty thousand fire bombs, of about five-kilo each. As the bomb smashed through roofing tiles, got on the attic, exploded there and set everything on fire, Turin was just glowing…”
“Once when we came back, next to the ladder where I worked there was a hole on the ground as a remains after one of the mortar attacks. So close to the ladder… I turned pale, but the firing was over by that time, so willy-nilly I got on the ladder again and continued working. But what happened? Beňadik’s residents began to hide in the theatre and in oratory; there were whole families also with children. Once in the afternoon about five o’clock there were children playing in the yard and one of the mortar shells just whizzed around. No one saw where it fell. They drove them all inside and in about two minutes it fell exactly on that place where the knot of those children played. If it fell only a little earlier, it would surely kill at least ten kids.”
“Yet during the last year (1949) we talked among Salesians about the desire of Communist Party to win our favor for their politics, however, we defended our independence because we saw we would suffer for it. We were in the communists’ way because we had a lot of youth in our institutes and we could influence them, so by the way they named us to be the number one enemy of the Communist Party. After the coup d'état in February we expected the upcoming bad times.
In the evening of that day at about six o’clock don Babulík was standing in front of the church and one lady from Šaštín came and said: ‘Don’t be scared of those soldiers, nothing can happen to you. All of this is happening just because of some maneuvers in this region. Those soldiers remained to guard in the forest to be ready in case some people’s rebellion takes place!’ The rebellion didn’t come. During the evening prayers don Babulík asked us to pray one more decade of the rosary for God’s protection as we were used to go to basilica in the evenings and pray on our knees around the altar. This is what the pilgrims did back then, so we did alike. Well, later I went to bed and on the second floor there slept clerics and their assistents. Don Tuna who died recently and one more priest whose name I don’t recall anymore didn’t go to bed, but they opened a window on their bedroom and when the lights were off they observed the yard. This way they saw policemen getting over the wall. They had torches on at times, so one could easily notice them. Don Tuna came, knocked on my door and when I opened he said we were surrounded. I had a very bad feeling, but I lay back down. What was I supposed to do? It was about eleven or eleven-thirty. He came back to me at midnight at said: ‘They are here.’ I asked: ‘Where?’ He told me they were knocking on the gate and yelling to open it in the name of law. I asked whether he thought the director would open to them and he said he thought so. Well, what was he supposed to do if they said they had to do an inspection? In the meantime they had iron bars trying to pry the gate, it fell right into the hallway and about forty policemen ran inside the institute. They took over the halls, towers and our occupation started during this so-called Barbarian Night.”
“During the war period a train from Bratislava to Vienna used to go only once a day there and then in the evening back. So I wanted to get on this train when I came to Marchegg. It is the border station from the Austrian side and Devínska Nová Ves is from the Slovak side. When I arrived in Marchegg (from Italy) I had all the letters from my friends - theologians with me, as they wrote them and asked me to deliver them at home. You know, back then the letters used to have even 2 – 3 months delay and each of them was always censored. They were being secretly opened and read through. I carried about six or eight letters in my winter coat assuming the police would not search there, that they would look in my suitcase. They came, looked and when they seemed to be finished with the inspection, as they walked away. Suddenly, one of them turned back and as if being sure he reached to my coat for the letters. He called the other man and told him: ‘Es kann auch spionaz sein!’ meaning this could have been also espionage. They took me right away to their office in Marchegg. There they asked me for those letters. I tried to explain that those are the letters of my Slovak friends who wrote home to their families. They ordered me to go to the stove and throw them into fire. I wanted to save them and I repeated my version of their origin, but they got mad and said: ‘Well, then go there and take everything out of your suitcase!’ They searched all the contents of my baggage and in the meantime my train to Slovakia left already. They left to have lunch and I stayed there waiting with my suitcase.”
“What was Katyusha? Well, they arrived and parked it on the road. We could see it from the presbytery window. It came to drive the Germans out of those three houses. They knew there was a German nest. There we saw the Katyusha to be used for the first time. It could describe it as a lorry where instead of the freight area there were wide rocket launchers. There was a little path leading from the hill and one aiming from below, where the rockets were launched. Those rockets were long and as they launched them there, they halted the car so that it didn’t move and they measured the distance. Then a rocketeer got into the car’s cabin and he launched the rocket. At first there was a flame from the back, it was about half-meter long, the explosion came and the shell was fired in a curved direction. Then he launched the rocket attached on the bottom; at once there could be four rockets launched. Then they loaded it again and attacked. This way we were able to see the new war gadget which Germans didn’t have at that time yet.”
“So this was in the beginning of July at about 11:30 am. We already wanted to give it up (the escape) as the air was never clear, but then it happened. I jumped towards the wall, climbed up as there were halves of the bricks in this wall missing, so I could easily hold with my hands and feet. There were already some wires in this wall in about this height, which I stepped over and jumped down from the other side. What happened there? There was a little house standing near this bulwark and the door was open. There was also a small dunghill, in the door stood a woman turned towards a barn. She didn’t notice I jumped down the wall. Well, I wondered – was she a communist or wasn’t she a communist? I waited until she would leave, but she still didn’t. From the other side of the bulwark there was a policeman guard-walking and I was afraid of him catching me there. I risked and went to talk to this lady. As I was about two meters from her, I greeted her: ‘Praised be Jesus Christ!’ she turned and answered: ‘Now and forever!’ This way I knew she was not a communist. I told her: ‘Lady, I came here from the concentration camp and I need to arrange few things in Podolínec, but I plan to come back in another way afterwards. Please, do not say anyone what happened, as they could interrogate you as well. She said: ‘Lord, protect me from that!’ I went out, there was a little street and nearby flew the river Poprad. I walked that way and on the tower there were two of my friends, students of theology, who were watching my escape. They had a white towel with them and if I were in danger, they were supposed to unfold it. It would be a sign for me to run and save myself. So every 100 – 200 meters I turned around and when I saw they sat there tranquilly, I turned to the main street. There was a railway, ending in Podolínec. I went to the station and bought a ticket to Poprad. I didn’t wait in the waiting room though, but I went out.”
Don Ernest Macák was born on January 7, 1920 in the village of Vištuk as the first of five children of peasant parents. He attended the elementary school in his home village and later he studied at the state Grammar School of Ján Hollý in Trnava, from where he went to study to Salesian Grammar School in Šaštín in 1932. After finishing the fifth grade he entered the novitiate of Salesian religious order in Hronský Beňadik. He finished the grammar school and philosophy studies in Moravská Ostrava in years 1936 - 1939 and during the next three years he attended a pedagogical practice at Salesian institutes in Hronský Beňadik, Šaštín and Trnava. He began his theology studies in Italian Turin; however, he was able to complete only two semesters at the Faculty of Theology of the Salesian Pontifical University as he couldn‘t come back in the fall of 1943 because of the war events. He finished his theology studies in Slovakia and on June 29, 1946 a bishop Dr. Michal Buzalka ordained him a priest. In the fall of the same year he enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Slovak University in Bratislava and at the same time he worked within his priestly and youth ministry in Bratislava, Hody near Galanta and in Šaštín. There he was affected by the so-called Barbarian Night in April 1950. At first he was interned directly in Šaštín, but after ten days along with his other confreres he was deported to a concentration monastery in Podolínec. Here he began to organize an escape, which was after several months finally successful. There was a warrant issued for his arrest and thus he had to hide. In spite of that he secretly, but intensively worked among young Salesians. He helped to organize escapes of his young confreres across the Iron Curtain; however, during one of the last attempts in September 1952 he was arrested by the State Security in Bohemian Přerov. After a cruel torturing in communist prisons he decided to pretend to be a fool. He went through prisons in Bratislava and Pankrác. He underwent stays at psychiatry and after investigation also by methods of electric shocks he was released. Although, fourteen more years he played a role of a fool and since he didn‘t receive the state assent for his priestly service, he had to manually work as an agricultural laborer in home village of Vištuk. Yet, in 1968 when he was allowed to travel to Italy he could begin to live normal life. In Rome since 1968 to 1976, besides other things, he was also literary active and he intensively cooperated on youth broadcasting of Vatican Radio, within which he had more than 600 performances. Until the 1985 he worked as a director of Salesian community of the Slovak Institute of St. Cyril and Methodius. Subsequently he taught at the Slovak-Italian grammar school in Rome and two years later he was appointed a director of the Salesian community in Basil, Switzerland. Don Ernest Macák returned to Slovakia in 1990 and he was assigned a mission to lead the Salesian house and Grammar School of Ján Bosco in Šaštín. In 1993 he became the Salesians‘ provincial in Slovakia. Six years later he came back to his favorite Šaštín and recently he has been „resting“ as a priest in Sisters of the Holy Cross in Cerová. In 2005 during the Slovakia‘s visit, the main superior Don Pascual Chávez publicly honored and appreciated don Macák at a big gathering of Salesian family in Bratislava. Besides his religious and pedagogical commitments, Ernest Macák devoted his life also to rich literary and publishing work. When being abroad, but later after the fall of totalitarian regime also in Slovakia he published several precious books: Malý generál/Malá superstar (Michal Magone), Muž s ranami (Padre Pio), V bunkri hladu (Maximilian Kolbe), Lurdy - maják atómového veku, Naša Sedembolestná Matka. Don Macák is also a co-author of a significant catechetic work - Dejiny spásy (History of Salvation).
