The occupation was a foul trick. It was as if my neighbour were having an affair with my wife. He forced his way in and took what he wanted
Download image
Ján Šramko was born on 21 January 1938 in Liptovský Mikuláš. Less than two years into his life, the World War II broke out. Although he remembers nothing of its beginning, the Slovak National Uprising and the liberation of Czechoslovakia, during which he hid with his mother in the cellar, are etched in his memory. As well as the post-war confrontation between the locals and the Germans and their collaborators. After the war, at his stepfather’s request, he trained as a miner. When a colleague tragically died while working in the mine, the witness was wrongly convicted of disrupting the economic plan. To escape the unjust punishment, he began to study at a military school. He served in the army for a number of years, later retiring to civilian life. Although he was not a direct enemy of the ruling regime, he unequivocally condemned the occupation in 1968 and still holds the view that it was a betrayal. In 2021, at the time of filming for Memory of Nations, he was living in a home for the elderly in Olomouc.
