"Most of my colleagues were there for a year. I was there for six months because I had military training for four years at university. It was Sunday and I knew that my military service would end in a week and I should go home. On Monday, the commander called me: "Frollo, you didn't tell me that you were leaving on Saturday!!!! You should have been promoted.' So I was promoted on Monday to private, on Tuesday to corporal, on Wednesday to sergeant and on Friday to second lieutenant. That was a huge military career, but only because they forgot about me. After that, when I was on military exercises several times, I ended up as a first lieutenant."
We were a group of classmates who stayed after school and did homework. Then we scribbled on the boards and made marks in one stroke. A few days later, ŠtB investigators arrived. And they called three or four of us and investigated what we were drawing on the blackboards. Those were numbers and tables. We were completely done with it. We didn't even know what it was about. I was investigated for the first time with my classmates. It turned out that we couldn't explain it, so they left. Even before they came, we did a writing test. Then the "eštebáci" called us to the choir room and interrogated us with the class teacher. Then somehow it ended and we went home.
"I spent my youth in Kysuce. Basically, when the Germans were retreating, they also occupied our house. They forced my aunt to cook for them. We moved into the basement. Then the Germans left, and two or three days later the Russians arrived. It was repeated. They forced my aunt to cook for them. Even before the Germans were there, at night she carried food to the partisans in the forest, in the hills. When the Germans left, the Russians came. We had cupboards there and the Russians stole them from us. The Germans didn't notice it, but the Russians looted it. That's weird.
At that time I had a motorbike and I went from Bratislava to Nové Mesto nad Váhom. I should have somehow bought the motorcycle there. When I went back, opposite me were tanks and tanks. I know that the information and traffic signs were also changed there because of the tanks to confuse them. I rode a motorcycle through Záhorie until I got to Nové Mesto nad Váhom and back. It was quite complicated. It was an experience. Those tanks in Bratislava were quite unpleasant. After that happened, my wife from Martin came quickly to me. 'I just came to see if I was alive.' I told her to go quickly to her daughter. I was fine, but she was worried about me. That's how we survived 1968.
Ivan Frollo was born in 1939 in Prešov. He survived the Second World War in Kysuce. He grew up in Košice, where he finished high school. He graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering SVŠT Bratislava. He worked at Tesla elektroakustika Bratislava, later at the SAV at Measurement Institute. In years 1998 – 2006 he was the director. In 1977 – 1978, he completed a six-month study stay at the University of California Berkeley and 15 other universities in the USA. He also worked for a long time at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (FEI) of STU. In 1994 – 2004 he lectured and led exercises to foreign students. His other cooperation with SjF STU and FEI STU consists in the management of works within the framework of ŠVS, diploma theses, he is regularly a member of commissions for state final exams and for the defense of doctoral theses. Professor Frollo is a member of several international and domestic scientific organizations, he is active in science management and also in national and international projects. He was awarded several important awards, such as the Silver and Gold Plaque of A. Stodol SAV “For Merit in Technical Sciences” (1989 and 1999), the Gold Medal of Johann Andrea von Segner “To the 85th Anniversary of Metrology in Slovakia” (2004), the Medal SAV for the support of SAV science (2005), Great Medal of St. Gorazda Award for Scientific and Pedagogical Activities awarded by the Minister of Education (2005), SAV Gold Medal “For Lifetime Work in the Field of Science” (2009), SAV Award “For Popularization of Science” (2015). The award for science and technology 2019 in the category Lifetime merits in the field of science and technology was won by the professor for lifetime merits for the development of the scientific field of measurement technology. He has 22 patents and 41 implemented measuring devices. For more than 30 years, he has been engaged in research into imaging methods – tomography based on magnetic resonance. He lives in Devínská Nová Ves.
