“My classmates, Jewish girls, very smart girls, were in the camp where were barracks before, by the church in Žilina – Závodie. They were behind such a fence, I went to see them there, but it was a horrendous scene, just awful! One cannot even imagine that. It was like those emigrants fleeing in such bad conditions, probably, but this was just impossible. It was fenced area crowded with a lot of adults and children, mixed together. And they didn’t know what was happening to them. Considering that nobody ever claimed their property back in that part of Žilina, I assume that most certainly they all had died.”
“March 27, 1983, we had a suspicion that something was happening because it was a corner house and the opposite house, a corner house as well, was an orphanage. I tried to get a job there and a director employed me for one month. However, after the end of the month I was dismissed because he wouldn’t employ nuns and priests, so I left. Then I was searching for a job again. It was very weird that by the orphanage, there was a man with cigarette constantly walking, when we went for a Sunday mass. It was Palm Sunday and when we came back from the mass, as soon as we got inside the house, there was a bell at the gate and they said that they were the State Security and wanted to search the house. I remember nothing at all except that they went through everything. I was there with them; they went through documents, looked at photos and they had that cyclostyle (mimeograph machine, note ed.) and a recorder. They seized few things, but I took what I could while they weren’t there. I took and tore stuff while they went to search somewhere else. It lasted all morning until afternoon. I think they left at about 2 or 3 pm.”
“It was very hard for me. I was already in my 50s and the light was on all night, then the looking through the peephole, opening with the keys and I always sensed it all, I was more sensitive so I perceived everything that was happening. It echoed throughout the building and my imagination worked greatly. Those kinds of problems they were. I didn’t experience any other torture. Can’t say that they were … well, there were some unpleasant moments like the showers. Everyone was standing bare and in the row; or those walks outside were awkward. There were five of us in the cell but the girls were very nice. I didn’t tell them the reason why I was there. They also had very hard time there. The girls were very young, so they didn’t understand much of it. Thus I didn’t tell them why. They were kind to me like to a grandmother, so I just sat there and they were cleaning around me. They were very thoughtful.”
Štefánia Mihalusová was born on October 23, 1931 in Marček near Žilina. She was brought up in a family of notary Štefan and his wife Štefánia, née Veveričíková. She had two, almost one generation older siblings. When she was 8 years old, she moved in with her sister Mária who was married in Žilina. After the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising was her father, supporter of the government, taken by partisans and shot. After the end of the War, as a fourteen year-old girl, she entered a convent of Franciscans and studied to become a teacher. After the communist takeover in February 1948, followed by the „Action R“, she was interned with other nuns in Moravia. There she worked in production as well as a personal assistant in senior house. In 1978 she came to Ružomberok to illegally live her religious life and she worked as a nurse in local hospital. In 1983 she became a victim of the so-called „Action Vír“ aimed against Franciscans and she was arrested. She spent 41 days in Žilina prison. A year later she went to disability retirement. After the events of November 1989 and after almost four decades, she was finally able to live freely her religious life. Currently she lives in convent in Ľubochňa near Ružomberok.
