When I was fifteen, the miller dismissed me from the service and I joined the partisans
Stáhnout obrázek
Pavel Raniak was born on 29 November 1928 in the village of Dobrá Niva near Zvolen, Slovakia. After completing seven grades of Catholic school, he went to work as a farm worker on a farm in the village of Senohrad and later helped out at the mill in Lackov. He joined the partisans and worked as an intelligence liaison. After the Slovak National Uprising outbreak, he was deployed as a volunteer of the Czechoslovak army in the vicinity of Martin. After the suppression of the uprising, he was wounded and fell into captivity. He ended up in prison in Zvolen, but managed to escape. Until the end of the war, he hid in the vicinity of Dobrá Niva. In the summer of 1945, he went to Bohemia to work and began participating in mining jobs in the mines in Most. After returning from the war, he decided to work full-time in the coal mines as a miner. During his employment he completed his education, joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and rose to the position of director of the Svornost mine in Ohníč. In 1968, he took over the management of the President Klement Gottwald mine in Hrdlovka, where he worked until 1970. During the August occupation, he publicly supported the policies of Alexandr Dubček and organised strikes and resolutions at the mines. With the onset of normalisation, he was dismissed from his post as director, expelled from the Communist Party and later banned from working in the mines in the vicinity. In 1975, he started working as an ore breaker in the uranium mines in Hamr na Jezeře, where he worked until his retirement. Today (2024), he lives with his wife in Jablonné v Podještědí. We were able to record his story thanks to the support of the Statutory City of Most.
