“I have also witnessed how my mother was almost shot by the Germans. As they came and wandered through the village, my mother asked them in German what they wanted, since the Russians had already arrived as well. Immediately they rushed at her, asking where the Russians were. However, my mom only heard that some mediators were near, various rumors about the Russians were spreading around. And the Germans wanted to shot my mother for not wanting to say where the Russians were. My mom carried my two-months-old sister and we were standing around her, surrounded by Germans who had the whole bunch of grenades. Fortunately, they left then and let us be.”
“This happened in 1950s, when Uzhgorod was already behind the border. My father used to live in Havaši family, who also worked within shoemaking. One of their sons was a Greek Catholic priest. He left from Uzhgorod to Vyšné Nemecké. Our village of Orechová was its subsidiary parish, thus he used to come there and serve Greek Catholic masses as well. This way we kept in touch. He taught religion and I remember the last class we had with him. When he was leaving, he said that when people part, sometimes they say ‘see you soon’ and sometimes ‘goodbye’. He told us, ‘Goodbye.’ He didn’t want to convert to Orthodox faith, and therefore he was arrested and sentenced to 10 years.”
“When I attended elementary school, I had a classmate – a Jewish girl named Elizka Róthová. There were two families: Herškovičs and Róths. The Herškovič family had a mixed good store and the Róth family had a pub. Eliza and I used to go to the same class and we sat next to each other. I remember when she brought her dolls to me saying she won’t play with them anymore. That was when the Jews were being deported to gas chambers. Thus, it stuck in my memory how the whole family was loaded on a wagon and taken to Uzhgorod. Then we only learned they were taken to the gas chamber, where they died.”
Anna Otčenášová, was born as Anna Miháľová on March 13, 1936 in Uzhgorod as one of 6 children. Her father Ján Miháľ was a shoemaker, her mother Mária, née Pitvorová, took care of children and the household. During the Slovak National Uprising, the family lived in a village of Orechová, but after the declared evacuation, they moved in with Anna’s grandmother in Kolibanovce. As a little girl, Anna became a witness of many dangerous events linked with the Slovak National Uprising and the latter crossing of liberating armies through Slovakia. After the end of the war she graduated from grammar school in Sobrance. In years 1954 – 1956 she continued studying geography and biology in Banská Bystrica within a reduced pedagogical university program. In 1956 she left to work as a teacher in Štrba. In 1959 she married Ján Otčenáš, a former political prisoner. Together they had two children. Since 1964 they lived in Liptovský Mikuláš, where Anna worked as a deputy director, later as a director of elementary school in Palúdzka. Right before the arrival of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968 she and her husband left for a visit to Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod. Currently Anna Otčenášová lives retired in Liptovský Mikuláš.
