Zuzana Petreje

“Two Germans came to our house. One was really unattractive, I thought to myself he would search even for a needle in our house. We had a barrel full of bullets for the light machine-gun and grenades were there too. If they had found it, it would have been really bad. And in the palliasse I had one more automatic disassembled, which if had been revealed, we would have been dead. But the unattractive man took off his shoes, since he was wet, opened the stove door, and dried his socks. And the other one asked me if I was a dressmaker, as I sewed a dress to my sister. I told him I wasn't a dressmaker, but if he needed, I could make some clothes for him. He said he didn't need anything, but that his wife was a dressmaker and he showed me her pictures. I looked and said: 'Inge, … Lotta,' and he was very surprised I recognized them. I explained him that in 1942 there was a retreat for children in Tatry Mountains. He knew nothing about his family since 1940. So when I told him this, ever since then, whenever there was a German raid, these two always came to our house.”

“When Veličko (Piotr Alexejevič Veličko – a partisan commander, note of ed.) came to Liptovská Kokava, firstly, of course, he visited the mayor. By this he knew immediately who returned from the battlefield. They knew everything as they had military intelligence service. My brother told him that he was done with the war for good. However, Veličko literally told him: 'I shoot you down right here if you don't join the Uprising!' This is how my brother was assigned to become an intelligence service commander.”