Josef Rusňák

* 1921

Veteran of WW2, eastern front, Prisoner of a Soviet concentration camp, Gulag, Inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus
1944 - 1945 - The liberation of Czechoslovakia, 2.11.1938 - First Vienna Award (Hungarian annexation of Carpathian Ruthenia and South Slovakia)
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    Bread Was Worth a Kilogram of Gold

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    “To show you an example of how hungry we were there: when the work was finished and we walked to our sleeping quarters, I found a piece of gold; it could even weigh one kilogram. I went to ask my commander whether he wanted the gold. He told me, yes, I do want the gold, and when I asked him what he would give me in turn, he replied: ´Well, for this one kilo of gold you’ll get three hundred grams of bread.´”

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    Theft of Bread Was Immediately Punished by Shooting the Culprit

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    “There were people of various nationalities, and also of various characters. I was a foreman of a work group and I always went to get bread for the others. Bread was precisely weighted on scales, and one was not allowed to exceed the prescribed daily ration of three hundred grams per person. One day I was putting this bread into a bag and I didn’t notice that one man behind me had cut the bag and was taking out the bread which I was putting in it. I immediately reported it to the commander; he already knew about it. They didn’t waste time with the culprit: ´What have you done? You would have these people starve!´ He took a gun and shot him on the spot. We received extra bread for it.”

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    neuvedeno, 14.08.2001

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    duration: 31:47
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In the Soviet labour camp, three hundred grams of bread was worth a kilo of gold, but also a human life.

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Josef Rusňák
photo: ilustrační foto
photo: ilustrační foto
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  Josef Rusňák was born in 1921 in Carpathian Ruthenia. As an eighteen-year-old student of the seventh grade of grammar school, he crossed the border to the Soviet Union. He was interned in several labor camps there, including gold mines. Being a Czechoslovak citizen, he subsequently joined the Czechoslovak army. At first he began training as a tank driver. He then transferred to an air force division where he served as a reserve pilot in the command’s staff. After the war he continued working as a pilot until 1976. In 1989 he was rehabilitated and promoted to the rank of a colonel, which he had been unable to receive before due to his refusal to join the Communist Party.

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