Ľubomír Miklo

* 1948

  • "Well, among other things, I was chosen to have two or three hockey players in my team... I did. And Horešovský was also there... a great representative from Sparta, Horešovský... Also, he just came for the war... they arrived on Wednesday and on Sunday, Saturday he wanted to go to a friend's wedding. So I had to arrange, I... to let him go to war. So Pittner let him go, he hadn't taken the oath yet, so he put on civilian clothes so that no one would stop him. These are stories from that... from that period. Well, and another story is from... that Dukla Jihlava had a contract with Steaua Bucharest, that hockey players from Steaua Bucharest went to practice in Jihlava at the beginning of the season. And they chose me as an interpreter. They chose me as an interpreter, in Hungarian. Well, but I didn't feel that I knew Hungarian, I just bought a book. Back then... what I mentioned at the beginning, that when I lived in Drnava, that I learned something. Well, and the test was such that at three o'clock in the morning the warden of the regiment woke me up. And I'm thinking... even to him, to the surveillance regiment... at three in the morning. I wonder what the hell I did, and that it won't wait until morning. Well, when I got there... it was a Czech and he said: "Kérem, üljön le," please sit down. And I say to him: "Köszönöm szépen." And he jumped up saying, hooray, he knows Hungarian. So this is how it works in war, that for the slightest, for the slightest knowledge, you will already be included somewhere. Well, they took me as an interpreter... I was supposed to report to the Grand Hotel at six in the morning, because the chief of staff was waiting for me there at eight. Because at eight o'clock, at eight o'clock they were supposed to... they were supposed to arrive by train, the Romanians. Well, the Romanians also came, they waited for me upstairs to see the interpreter who knew Czech-Romanian, he was the original interpreter. Well, and this one in Hungarian because a significant part of those Hungarians... those Romanians knew Hungarian. They were from the Hungarian… from the Hungarian region, there in Romania. There are many of them there... So I went there, and the Romanians came. The manager called me, and them... and the Hungarian coach, because the Hungarian knew Hungarian... they had a Hungarian coach. So he started to consult with me in Hungarian, he saw that there was nothing wrong with me... he waved his hand and said in Hungarian that I can go with them."

  • "He had mines... he had mines from Štítnik to Rákoš. Was he somehow in charge of them? He was in charge of that. He was also the manager of the mine at Na Hrádek, when the cave appeared. He was the head of the mine! It was called Kapusta Štôla... so the miners brought him two such pieces, those nice things from here. Well… and that was a mine. They...miners usually come across some such ornaments. Well, and he took it home, reported it to the authorities, and then all of a sudden the mine closed and I don't know how many years it was closed there. The Ochtinská Aragonite cave. It was interesting that he walked from Štítnik to the station, for example. Crossing Hrádok... I always laughed that he had had enough... when he went there and back, the shift was done. Well... other than that, as far as his profession was concerned, he was within these ore mines, so he was declared one of the best who can recognize individual stones... like what it contains, which stone. When it was necessary to go to the dump somewhere... they called my father and he went there. He said how much, let's talk about magnesite, he said how much there is magnesite, how much is dolomite and similar things... so he was interested in it, even during his studies in Banská Štiavnica. And he was also said to be on such a ring that they walked up in the woods, because Štiavnica is known for having all kinds of rocks there... the stones contain everything, and so on. And do you remember those studies in Štiavnica? Does he have any incidents from here? That's how he mentioned that he was a good football goalkeeper... he played for Štiavnica. He left quite a lot of photos from that area... and mostly, well... There was no such housing yet, there was no boarding house... you still had to take it from Poloma, but when he went to Štiavnica at the beginning of the school year, he took the duvet with him. Did he walk? Duvet cover. Duvet... well, he had to. He walked from Poloma, and so... Yes, from Poloma to Hačava, and the train ran all the way there. Because Poloma, Rimavská Sobota and Tisovec what is it... come on. Oh yeah. He always laughed so much that he had to carry the ghost with him. So it had to be… it couldn't be very stuffed with feathers, because he wouldn't be able to pack it. Just put it in the suitcase...just a little fluff to keep it in."

  • "And do the parents remember the coming of the war? That is, for the establishment of the Slovak Republic, whether there somehow... As I mentioned, my father was a partisan, but he got sick. He got severe pneumonia. This is also mentioned in Mr. Bolfík's book... which I mentioned. And mother... mother also received... she was part of 255, it was called... such... the state gave a pension allowance for the fact that they were in partisan activity. Father was an active partisan and then he was in the hospital. That was a hospital in Hačava, in a mine. Mr. Novák, the engineer, who was the owner of Mastek, that mine, he set up in the mine premises, such a... It can't even be called a hospital... but such a shelter, where the partisans hid and doctors came to them and so on. That mother was not a direct participant in the uprising. That mother was like that... among those 255 people, those who helped the partisans were also counted. For example, my mother used to carry food to the forest for the partisans already, there... Around there somewhere? From... yes, in the vicinity since there were partisans, they carried them. In order not to show themselves in public, women wore it for them... food up. Well… And didn't those partisans also go down to the village? I don't know this in detail. They certainly went, but there were also people in the village who did not like the partisans. Like everywhere... there are people who like and who don't like. And... your father, while he was a partisan, was only with those partisans... or did he get somewhere further? Not. He was in the vicinity, and after that... as for where he was directly in the battle, he mentioned that he was above Rimavská Sobota, in the direction of Hnúšťa, that they fought there. And so... he also has these... comrades from here... even Mr. Bolfík was there, a direct participant in it. And did he mention specific fights? Did he talk about it? He was talking… but I was too young for it, somehow I didn't remember all these things. And before he became a partisan, was he in the army? He wasn't. He wasn't… In the fifties, they went... we lived in Štítnik and they went to such... those who did not complete basic military service, completed such training in Rožňava. Those were the years 1920, 1921."

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“I had expectations that there would be that change, but I did not have such expectations ... that there would be such a dirty trick as is happening now.”

Witness Ľubomír Miklo during EyeDirect recoding
Witness Ľubomír Miklo during EyeDirect recoding
photo: Post Bellum SK

Ľubomír Miklo was born on January 30, 1948 in the picturesque village of Polom, as an only child. His father Michal came from the same village, but his mother Judita, unmarried Vaľová, grew up nearby, in the village of Poproč. In his youth, Michal mainly devoted himself to agriculture and, like every other young man at that time, also to mining. He came from three children, while his mother had a lot to do as his father left them very early. In time, Ľubomír’s father became the head of the mine, and after an insidious illness, he settled down in an official chair. Judita grew up in a larger family, as she had five other siblings. Her father was a cable car operator and her mother, a housewife. As a young girl, she took a sewing course and later worked as a helper in the school kitchen. During the Second World War, Ľubomír’s father Michal was part of the local partisans and actively participated in the Slovak National Uprising. At first he was very active, he even found himself in direct combat in the area of ​​Rimavská Sobota, but later he fell ill with pneumonia, so he retreated to the rear. At that time, Judita clearly belonged to the so-called 255, as she contributed by bringing food to the partisans’ hiding places. Ľubomír moved several times during his childhood, because of his father’s job as a miner. They lived in Drnava, Štítnik, Ochtina, but also in Slavošovce. He finished elementary folk school in 1963 in Slavošovce. In the meantime, his father fell ill, which meant the end of working in the mine and settling down in an official position. It also meant another move, this time in August 1963, to Jelšava. In the same year, he started attending the Secondary School of Mechanical Engineering in Košice. After graduating from high school, he aspired to become a sports editor, but due to not being accepted into journalism, he decided on mandatory military service. He enlisted in Havlíčkov Brod among the infantrymen who were in charge of the light machine gun. Due to health problems, Ľubomír was not satisfied with the placement, so he was later transferred among the tankers in Jihlava. He graduated from 1967 to 1969, while also surviving the invasion of foreign troops in August 1968. At the end of his military service, Ľubomír completed an interview at the University of Economics in Žilina, railway transport economics. In 1969, Ľubomír entered the university in Žilina, where he lasted only two years. As he believes today that at that time he was probably more interested in love than studies, in September 1971 he married his sweetheart, Mária. Mária came from Orava and he met her during his studies in Žilina. They lived in Jelšava for two years, and when they got an apartment in Revúca in 1973, they moved there. The family grew and two daughters, Ľubomíra and Mária, were born there. He became an employee of a state-owned company, which dealt with the projection of Slovak magnesite plants, while working at a detached workplace in Lubeník, at the Slovak, magnesite and company directorate. He worked there for many years, until December 31, 1992. Later he became a self-employed person and officially retired in 2008. In the revolutionary 1989, he founded the VPN and was part of the committee. Ľubomír began to devote himself more seriously to municipal politics only after the revolution, while he has been working as the chief controller of Jelšava for 16 years. Currently, he wanted to end his work, mainly because of his increasing age, but since he was still asked to help, he is still dedicated to this work.