Imrich Gallik (1926)

Biography

“Joinery was my blessing in disguise.”

Imrich Gallik was born on August 16, 1926, in Spišská Belá part Strážky into Spiš-German peasant family. His father fought in an Austrian-Hungarian army in Russia. His mother came from a German family, who after the emigration to the USA returned to Slovakia in 1904. Imrich’s mother tongue was German, he attended a German school and under the regulations then, he also belonged to Hitlerjugend. He got trained in joinery and from 1944 he worked in a joiner’s workroom and at the same time he helped his father feed horses in gamekeeper’s lodge. Immediately after the liberation, national militia in close cooperation with the Soviet command took over the security service in the state. The security authorities of NKVD with an assistance from their informers started arresting local people. The first were Slovaks, mainly those who worked as clerks, teachers, policemen, officers and members of HSĽS (Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party), HG (Hlinka Guard) as well as the citizens of German and Hungarian nationality. It was often a random selection – just to fill up the transports and gain cheap labour force. When Imrich Gallik was at work in Kežmarok gamekeeper’s lodge on March 10, 1945, the three NKVD agents and a member of people’s militias came and led him away. As he was a citizen of German nationality he also was a member of militia, thus he had to obey. After five days of interrogation in Spišská Belá, he was guarded on foot to Levoča along with other arrested men. He spent three days in a concrete dungeon without any light and food. He had been there for two weeks, when he was transferred to Nowy Sacz in Poland and thence to Sanok, where he also spent several weeks. This transit camp was only the first station as then they continued the way in freight cars, in which they spent 9 days in really inhuman conditions. Three months later they arrived in the Soviet labour camp of Alagir and thence they went on foot to the labour camp in Nuzal, which was about 35 kilometres away. After division of prisoners into groups, Imrich Gallik was due to his joinery skills assigned to work at the building of another labour camp in Zgit, where prisoners built wooden shacks, instead of working in a mine. Imrich spent three and a half years in gulag. After being released from prison, he was transported to German town of Frankfurt (Frankfurt an der Oder), and he didn’t have permission to return to Slovakia. Thus he decided to cross the Czech borders illegally and he came back home to Strážky on December 20, 1948. After his return, he engaged in joinery again and in 1951 got married. However, in connection with the communist takeover his family experienced not only confiscation of assets, but also nationalisation of over 6 ha of their land and for their negative attitude to joining the agricultural cooperative his mother never got the food rations. Imrich Gallik enjoyed the following years with his closest relatives in his native village and the years he had spent in gulag remained just a painful memory for him.

My Way to GULAG

“In Sanok there were ten freight cars prepared for us. We were travelling 45 to 50 men in one car. The car stopped once a day and we were given some food. I had no spoon, no bowl, so I didn’t eat for three days. When that man came in, he had a sort of cane. He laid it to every one of us and counted one, two, three and we had to jump from one side to another. Once, he hit my elbow and I really thought it was broken. And as for the food, I hadn’t eaten for three days. Then, I thought about how I could eat without any utensils. I extended my hands to him and he put the mash, or semolina pudding, or thick bean soup right into my palms and I licked it like a dog. The way took about nine days until we arrived in a labour camp.”

My Acquaintance Shot Dead

“We had been in Nuzal camp only for few days. There was a very high main fence with barbed wire. There also was a dead zone, which was one and a half meter in width, as well as such a low fence only about a meter in height. And one man from our village went to hang something there. I wasn’t far from him as we were many from the same village sitting there and we suddenly heard a shot. I looked at him and he was falling down. He was shot dead there.”

Our Daily Bread...

“Some men were sent to work in a forest, some got to workrooms. I got to the joiner’s workroom in Mizurskaja. From Nuzal to Mizurskaja it was about five kilometres and we used to go on foot to work, yes, on foot. In the morning we got 300 g of bread and some soup and we worked till four or five without lunch. Only after coming back we could have dinner, which consisted of 300 g of bread with fish and some tea. And every day ran this way.”

Bedbugs and Lice

“When we had a free day, we could go to see the others, but they always found some work for us. I can mention the situation when we came from work and we were about ten men in a room, where we had plank-beds and so many bedbugs and lice, I haven’t told you about it yet. At the beginning, they disinfected our clothes from lice and eliminated the lice from our skin. You know, those lice were devouring us, it was something horrible. And every morning we saw bedbugs flying down from attic and suddenly there were lots of them everywhere. Those lice and bedbugs dogged us everywhere.”

They Worked Somebody’s Else Land

“When the new collective farms were being founded, I mean the agricultural cooperatives, we were deprived of several hectares of our land, and actually it was over 6 hectares. They even didn’t give us a rent and worked our land for more than forty years. My mum didn’t get food rations as she refused to join the cooperative, you know, she didn’t get for instance sugar or other rationed goods. This way they persecuted people.”

They Survived in Gamekeeper’s Lodge

Redactor: “You have mentioned that your German fellow citizens were leaving the country during the war maybe to save themselves. And your family, did they stay?” “You know, we had been promised to get a car from military and to be driven to Czech part of the republic. Thus we arrived in Kežmarok with our horses; it was in the time of evacuation, in December 1944. However, the German military was so debilitated that they had no cars, absolutely nothing, but the most important thing was that my mum met Mrs. Fabrinská from gamekeeper‘s lodge and she asked her, ‘Mrs. Galliková, what are you doing here?’ And my mum told her everything. Then, she replied, ‘Don’t go anywhere; come to us, to our lodge.’ And we really went to their lodge in a forest. We brought all our things there, our stuff, our horses, everything we had was in their lodge. Then, our house in the village was destroyed, windows broken, roof wrecked. It was something horrible. She really saved us from all those horrors. If we had gone there, we would have lost everything and who knows maybe we even wouldn’t have survived.”

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČS) and Hitlerjugend

“I was offered to submit an application. I worked as a chief and a master craftsman, these were two positions for one person, yes, and there were only ten employees. They trusted me and allowed me to submit an application to join the party. Then, I decided to do so and I filed the application. I was given some forms and I filled them, I responded to all questions, but when they read that I had been a member of Hitlerjugend, they immediately responded. They called me there and told me that I couldn’t be accepted as I had belonged to them.”

Výpoveď tohto pamätníka bola spracovaná a publikovaná vďaka finančnej podpore EÚ v rámci programu Európa pre občanov – Aktívna európska pamiatka.