Ladislav Ürge

* 1939

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If I was born into a purely Slovak or Hungarian family, I would have less problems in life

Ladislav Ürge was born on July 14, 1939 in Levice into an ethnically mixed family. Until the days when history in Europe was rewritten and its maps redrawn. The city had the Hungarian name Léva, as the southern part of Slovakia came under the Kingdom of Hungary after the First Vienna Arbitration in 1938. From an early age, he witnessed historical changes in the territory of today’s southern Slovakia. As a little boy, he was deeply affected by the events of World War II, the persecution and subsequent deportations of Jews. Even the liberation and the end of the war did not bring peace to the lives of Ladislav Ürge and his parents. The family was robbed several times. He and his parents forcibly evicted him as part of Beneš’s decrees. As a result of the Košice government program in 1945, he had to enter a Slovak school. Despite the fact that he spoke only his mother tongue - Hungarian. After February 1948, his father store was nationalized. He also witnessed the events of November 1989, when he had to appear before the Research Institute of Energy Equipment in Levice in front of a crowd of workers and make three basic demands - the departure of Soviet troops, free elections and the end of one party.