Andrej Milták

* 1936

  • "It was very dramatic. They came and said, 'Comrade Miltak, we must use the land here, because it borders on the land of those who have entered the collective farm.' They gave us land where nothing was growing, it was impossible to grow. Just mow the grass. My father had to leave it. "

  • "She was blamed for going to church. She already had problems at the grammar school, there were anonymous letters that we went to church, that she was a believer. I was invited to Žamberk, there was a grammar school there. And there the class teacher told me how to deal with it, that it was terrible that they didn't have such a student yet and that how to deal with it in order to admit her to that school. I said, 'Professor, I'm sad, but use that it's a lie, that we're forcing her to church, that she doesn't want to go to church.' So he thanked me. And so he got to college. "

  • "Surely you remember, I will never forget that - under the symbol of the Czech linden emblem, Mečiar and our former president Klaus sat there and there they agreed on how Czechoslovakia would break up, and it had already begun there that Czechoslovakia must split. I don't think it would have happened if they let people vote. "

  • "I remember that time. I had a very difficult time because the Germans were waiting for orders in our village before they went east to fight until they continued east and did what they wanted. They shot whoever they wanted, for example. Well, then they came once. And they said we should leave the village in an hour and go to the death transport. So we left the village and three kilometres from the village we suddenly saw it was on fire. Well, we went in the transport and the people near Prešov saved us. In the morning, when they put us in the transport, the people said we were gone, so we stayed there. It wasn't until after the war that we returned. We found a home completely levelled with the ground, the whole village burned down, just the church remained there. "

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    Červená Voda, 07.10.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:09:40
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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When our village was burned down, we were very happy that we got housing in the Czech Republic

With his wife and both daughters, early 1960s
With his wife and both daughters, early 1960s
photo: Archiv pamětníka

Andrej Milták was born on May 23, 1936 in the village of Stará Kelča in eastern Slovakia, Humenné district. His childhood was marked by war and the crossing of the front. In 1944, as a little boy, he experienced the burning of his native village by German soldiers. After the war, the family moved to Bohemia, to the village of Prostřední Lipka near Králík. The family began to farm privately on the lands of an displaced German family. At the time of collectivization, these lands were taken away from them and in return they received replacement lands, which could no longer be managed. His father then had to join a collective farm to support his wife and eight children. Andrej Milták worked as a tractor driver at the state tractor station. He married in 1956 and he and his wife had two daughters. The younger daughter died at the age of 21 of complications associated with epilepsy. The whole family was deeply religious, which brought them a number of complications under communist rule. Her daughter had trouble getting to university, but in the end she still managed to graduate from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Olomouc. In 2002, Andrej Milták’s wife died. Since 2012, he has lived very happily in the Home of St. Zdislava in Červená Voda. He had four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, who visited him regularly with his daughter.