Štefan Šilhár

* 1932

  • “The first time we were at the border, but the guide didn’t show up. We were at the border, but to go back was much more difficult than to get there. As we walked towards the border, we watched out where the guards moved or didn’t move, etc. But when the guide didn’t come, we couldn’t proceed because we didn’t know what to do after getting through the river Morava. Where to go? To the left, to the right? Where were the main guards? Where was the seat of the Soviet garrison? The border guards used to walk around. ‘Halt! Documents!’ And at once you were sent back to Slovakia. And there were many people caught or shot down.”

  • “We went to Vienna and in Russian zone we had to get off the train. (The guide) hired taxis for so many people. I guess there were three or four taxis. And the taxi drivers knew who we were as our clothes were muddy. No one said a word. ‘Say nothing!’ The guides said as they paid the full price and the drivers were happy because they could fit so many people in and earn nice money.”

  • “I prepared for the escape and when I was leaving, my mother told me: ‘You will come back.’ And I answered: ‘This time I’m not coming back.’ And I didn’t. I came back seventeen years later.”

  • “This time we went the other way, not through Bratislava and nearby villages as Záhorská Bystrica is and the like. This time we went to Trnava, in the direction of Šaštín and Kúty. We met in ones and each of us boarded different railway car in different stations. We travelled to Šaštín or Kúty, not closer, making sure to have the right way ticket. We detrained in Šaštín. In Moravský sv. Ján there was a guide who had led us before. So there were two guides and a group of fifteen men, if I remember it well.”

  • “During the night from April 13 to 14, 1950, when they stormed into our house, they burst in insidiously just like to other houses. For example, they pounded on our gate. I don’t know whether you are familiar with Šaštín. It is a national shrine and there is a squared courtyard similar to Castel Gandolfo, where the summer house of the Holy Father is. They pounded on our gate and the gate-man asks him: ‘What’s going on?’ ‘There is a need to administer the last rites for a dying person.’ He opened the gate. ‘Hands up!’ They screamed and took over the whole house with guns in their arms, with automats in their hands. They were very well prepared and well organized militiamen. They thoughtlessly broke into all the religious houses, or almost into all, yet, later they took over all of them.”

  • “Suddenly we spotted them. Along the river Morava there was such a bank approximately two metres high and four metres wide, such a road on which a car could drive as well. Sometimes the guards used to watch from there. We had to go up and down. It was such tension. And we saw them. ‘To the ground!’ Our guide said in undertone. He had to react in a trice as soon as he spotted them. We managed to get through the bank. He had inflatable dinghies. There was one for four people and one for two people, such a smaller one. I had the chance to be the fourth person in the bigger dinghy, when sailing over the second time.”

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The fate is a pseudonym of God’s Providence

Štefan Šilhár
Štefan Šilhár

Štefan Šilhár was born on July 2, 1932 in Pezinok. When he was only four years old, his father died and his mother had to work very hard to be able to take care of three little children. After the elementary school in Pezinok he attended high school in Bratislava. Furthermore he decided to study in a collegial school for future priests in Šaštín. Here he was affected by the cruel Action “K” (Monasteries), which the communist regime commanded during the night of April 13 - 14, 1950. The goal of this action was to take over monasteries, later on also the convents. Consequently, the priests and friars in general along with Štefan, who was back then barely eighteen-year old boy, were moved to a concentration monastery in Podolínec. Since the regime didn’t manage to “re-educate” them, the younger prisoners were later on released. Štefan was able to continue his studies in Modra’s high school, although he was aware of the fact that in the back then Czechoslovakia, his greatest dream - to become a priest - would have never come true. Therefore in 1951 he made the first, but unsuccessful attempt to cross the borders with Austria. In October 1951 he made his second attempt to flee to freedom. A group of fifteen men headed from Šaštín towards the borders, so that they could later at night sail on inflatable dinghies across the river Morava to Austria. As he wanted to get to Italy, yet he had to overcome hundreds of kilometres through the Soviet, American, British, and French occupation zone of Austria. However, in spite of these dramatic events, before Christmas 1951 he was sitting by the desk at the University of Turin, where he began his philosophy studies. After the graduation his superiors sent him to a mandatory two-year didactic-pedagogical practice to France, where he worked in a little Ukrainian seminary in Loiret. Later he also taught French language in Italy and during his four-year theology studies, every summer holidays he accomplished this pedagogical practice in Germany. He was ordained a priest on July 1, 1959. In 1960s he achieved a Certificate of Proficient in English in Oxford, which he later completed by a conferment for English teaching in Rome. He extended his university education in Turin and in Rome, where he gained a degree of Philosophy Doctor. In 1968 he returned to Slovakia, however, his stay was interrupted by the joint forces of the Warsaw Pact which invaded Czechoslovakia. In Šafárik Square in Bratislava he convinced an Italian bus driver to take him along and this way he left his homeland again. Abroad he continued in his publishing and translating activities and for twenty-five years he worked as a priest and a professor in Italy. In the second half of 1980s he began to pursue only the insistent pastoral work and accompany Slovak pilgrims and visitors in Rome. He finally came back to Slovakia in September 1992. Besides the priest’s work he engages in publishing articles on various topics, as well as in translation and interpreting from English, French, Italian, and German. For seven years he also worked as a professional assistant in a detached workplace of Comenius University, in St. Thomas Aquinas Institute in Žilina, where he lectured philosophical disciplines.