Michal Roško

“I also have an experience of writing to the Office of the President and asking for greater religious freedom. Since my friend was a singer in Prague – his father was a former teacher – he came to Košice and told me: ‘Did you write to the Office of the President?’I said I did. ‘You may have some problems because of that, because your letter is at the Ministry of Culture already,’ he told me. Two months later people from Prague came and called me to the Regional National Committee with my director and reproached me for writing that letter. I told them: ‘All right, I didn’t write it anonymously. I just wrote in a sense what our Constitution ensures – the religious freedom. Not only to Roman Catholics, but also to Greek Catholics. I felt such strength back then; the Holy Spirit inspired me that I had no fear at all. That man from Prague, from the Ministry said: ‘Well, you almost convinced us! Don’t write to the Office of the President anymore and you may continue working at the State Scientific Library as a warehouseman.’ He said that so as they wanted to fire me from the library.”

“That monastery in Králíky was kind of an internment camp, where the Jesuits, Salesians, Franciscans were gathered together. The young ones or some others were either left there or divided to other places in 1950. We stayed in Králíky approximately half a year.” “What did you do as a PTP worker?” “Well, for example, I worked at the farm. Once a horse felt sick, so I unhitched him, sat on him and tried to make him move. Those guards started catching me as they thought I was running away from the camp. I told them: ‘No, don’t worry, the horse is sick, so I am trying to help him!’ Or in times when I planted snails, the guard took his gun and went with me. I had a bucket, such a cloak, an umbrella and I went to pick snails near the brook. We used to come back at lunch. Before that I even worked in a laundry room. We washed clothes and so.”