Anna Bergerová

* 1930  †︎ 2024

  • "Mines were not visible. There were different types of mines, landmines, tank mines ... The Germans made landmines and connected them together, so when someone stepped on a mine, other mines also exploded and everyone around them was dead or wounded. It was a terrible area to cross. These were the worst 4 days and nights in my life. When I went to the wounded, one said, "No, let me die, run to save your life". Then he picked a gun and shot himself. He was in such a state that I couldn't have helped him. It was a terribly bloody crossing in which we walked over dead bodies."

  • "Dr. Dolina looked at me, and I waited, frightened, which job would he assign me. He said, "You will be my helper, my nurse." I didn't know anything, I almost started to cry. He said, "Don't cry, the wounded do not like crying but a smile, and that will be your main task. And you'll do what I tell you. I viewed him as God, I obeyed him so much."

  • In the two hours that Brother Vasil was at home and we were happy, he said that everything had moved on the Russian frontline and soon we would be liberated and reunited. He said, "You know there are partisans, do everything you can do for them and listen to their instructions. He was better informed about the partisan movement and about everything that was happening there than we.

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    Bratislava, 12.03.2020

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    duration: 02:35:32
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th century
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My teenage years fear hatred of Hitler, effort, to end the war and free ourselves”

Anna Bergerová, photo from the identification of "Union of Slovak Partisans"
Anna Bergerová, photo from the identification of "Union of Slovak Partisans"
photo: archív pamätníčky

Anna Bergerová, nee Danova, was born on March 3, 1930, in the Ruthenian village of Habura in eastern Slovakia. She had two brothers who were active in anti-fascist resistance groups in Czech Republic. After the outbreak of the war, she lived with her mother Julia and sister Maria. When German soldiers moved into their house, they fled and stayed with the partisans. In the partisan unit Chapayev, she helped Dr. Gruber (real name Jozef Dolina) as a nurse. At the same time, she worked with her sister Maria as a connection, they smuggled ammunition and on spy missions. After the rupture of the German front line in November 1944, she continued to work near Kalinov as a nurse for soldiers and partisans returning from the frontline and released prisoners from concentration camps. After the war, she graduated from the grammar school in Humenné, and later the Faculty of Law, Comenius University in Bratislava. She was an official of the Slovak Women’s Union, a member of the National Committee and After the war, she graduated from the grammar school in Humenné, the Faculty of Law of the Comenius University in Bratislava, was an official of the Slovak Women’s Union, a member of the national committee and she was actively involved in social and political life even at the time of the documentation even when she was retired and lived with her husband in Bratislava. Anna Berger died on February 19, 2024.