Tag #135762 - Interview #100829 (Tibor Engel)

Before the war, there used to be markets in Kokava, and my mother used to go there from Utekac to sell things. She sold mixed goods. Back then, people we used to call ‘highlanders’ used to come there from far and wide, from the mountains. I remember the later, postwar markets. Some of them had stalls, and some of them sold things without a stall. They were arranged side by side. For example a counter, let’s say three meters long, a pole, covered with canvas, and then all sorts of goods spread out on it. Usually the merchants would spread themselves out on one side of the town square, or sometimes also on the other.

As for the political climate in Utekac, as far as I remember it was primarily a workers’ community. So that basically means that social democracy and communism dominated. Especially social democracy had grassroots support there. This also showed itself in the fact that most of the villagers actively participated in the Slovak National Uprising. It was a very active resistance. During the last days of August 1944, shooting was heard quite often from all sides. My parents’ store stood on this semi-square. There was always something going on there. Someone arrived, someone left. One set of partisans arrived, another left. It would also happen that people that were claiming to be partisans would arrive, and take something from everyone. Then a second set came, and arrested them for being thieves. I even remember very well, this was probably at the end of August 1944, when Allied planes were going to bomb the town of Dubova. They were flying over Utekac. They were heavy bombers with that monotonous droning, and there were many of them.