Michal Slivka

“The year 1948 came up. We were already anxious – those of us who were able to foresee a bit. We had fear of the front already that the bad is coming for us too. 1948 came up and that was it... end to freedom, end to law, so that is how it begun. In 1957 they founded a kolhoz at our place.” Redactor: So how was the agitation then – by fair means? “By unfair ones. They came for me, grabbed my legs and my hands and brought me to a municipal office and there they held me for three days and three nights. It was a terrible mental stress – three days and three nights. They didn’t even let the children visit me and they still tried to persuade me, but they couldn’t break me.” Redactor: So what did they tell you, how did they threaten you? “At first, they thought it would work it out voluntarily. That it is good... Than when it didn’t work out by good means, they started to exchange my land – they did it six times. Before, I could harvest a hundred meters high of corn, and also some potatoes. And when they made the exchange, I could harvest only thirty meters. So I got lousy money. So I lived poorly along with the family and children.” Redactor: How were the quotas for amounts you had to turn in? “Well, year after year they were higher and higher, one could not fulfill them. Than they though of various worse penalties and the sad thing is that natives did that. They were serving in National committees. They are saying that they had to do that – but that is not true, they didn’t. How many times I told them – you must die! It is sad, that the natives did that to me.”

Redactor: In the times before the nationalization – what kind of farm did you have? “I had horses, cows, bulls, heifers, sows... Then they did those buy-outs, so they confiscated my farms. Not only to me they did that but to many others. They wanted to destroy a man that way. And than there were the obligatory provisions. They wanted more and more. Intentionally they gave the land to me, they had orders to give me the worst land. So as I said, I could harvest only a little. I didn’t even have enough for feeding. According to the law, they should have given me an adequate land. But they had no respect to law. I wrote to them and nothing. That they should give me such land they confiscated from me... nothing. They had no respect – it was simply a dictatorship, totalitarianism...” Redactor: Why did they attempt so hard to get you to became part of the collective farm? Did you have a lot of property or what was the reason? “No, they saw that I had agricultural schools... I had always been working as a sick man. And I didn’t present myself. But they knew all about me. They said that when Slivka signs, the whole village would do so. That is what they wanted, to break me. When they saw that I didn’t give up, also the others held firm, those better, productive farmers. Those others farmers who signed were fooled and were angry that they promised them that they would be all well.” Redactor: When they attempted to get you into that collective, how did the others in the village behave to you? “Well at first they behaved well. They did the buy-out to about fifteen of them, took away their animals. But then when they broke a man, when he signed, it was their man already. So they broke him internally and then that man, that farmer, started to speak well of them. That is how it was and how it is. Even now you can hear that it was good times. That those were good times, during communism.”

“In 1970 my son was expelled from the university, from the fourth grade. It was initiated by Boh Berník, who was a head of the district here and the Party’s first secretary. He gave orders to universities here and there, I don’t even remember, and they fired him from the fourth year. And so they did with my daughter – they expelled her from the fourth year of economics. Several times, they did the buy-outs with me, confiscated my animals. Violently, they took them. They left me only horses. Then I earned something and bought other animals, so I was still trying... Well, then they saw, that it was no use with me. I didn’t even come to vote. They liquidated me, took my fields off me, because I was allegedly ill. But it was not so. I had to find a job and go work – imagine, I was 50 years old and had to start working once again.” Redactor: So where were you working? “Here in Tatrasvit, I found myself a somewhat easier job, as I was in bad shape – had a crooked spine and also mentally I was really down. I didn’t believe I would make it to year 2000.”