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At first, I had a position at a construction company, but only for a short time. The longest time I worked at one place was at ‘Domace potreby’ [Household Business], in the head office. My husband was employed in Nitra. We went there to live, and we stayed for ten years.
My daughter was a student at the economics high school then, that’s where she got her diploma. In 1966, we returned to Bratislava. I got this position. There were 220 of us employed, I didn’t know anyone. I was in the propagation department, my task was to insure the procurement of the annual stock.
We got orders from the yearly buyers in Levice and Palarikovo, therefore they put me out there, where they mainly spoke Hungarian. I went out to those places. Before the market, about a week earlier, I traveled out there. I arranged the huts, and rooms for the sellers. The market generally lasted one week.
After I arranged that, I was always there, naturally, at the opening, because I was the so-called ‘povernicka’ [Slovak: in charge]. When I finished work, I went home.
I’ll tell you, how I got home. There was no bus, nothing. I met our planner, who revealed to me that the director was also getting ready to go home, and that he would certainly take me by car. I didn’t know the director, that’s why the planner asked him. Of course, he’d take me home, I just had to be at the gas station at one o’clock. I was at the station at exactly one, and I got into the big black car. He sat next to the driver telling him to get moving. Ten minutes later, nobody was left alive but me.
The director said to the driver, ‘Pridaj plyn’ [Slovak: put your foot down!]. He put his foot down and we slammed into a power pole. I put my two hands in front of my face when I saw we were going to hit it, but after that I don’t know what happened.
A bus coming from the opposite direction saw the accident happen, stopped, they got out and came over to the accident site. One of them said, ‘Hey, I hear some groaning back here, somebody’s still alive.’ That’s when they saw I was lying in the back. There was a man with them, who had an axe with which they cut out a hole large enough to pull me out. Then they took me to the hospital.
That’s how I got on physical disability [pension] at the end of the 1960s. I suffered some serious injuries. My vertebrae, my spine was broken in two places, I had head injuries, but they treated me and in the end I got better.
That’s how I was on disability pension before, and only later did I start working as a tourist guide. After I was pensioned, I worked for twenty-six years at a travel agency. At the beginning, I just helped out, but then I got to like the work. I often guided Germans from the DDR [German Democratic Republic] and the Austrians also, during the so-called socialist period.
My daughter was a student at the economics high school then, that’s where she got her diploma. In 1966, we returned to Bratislava. I got this position. There were 220 of us employed, I didn’t know anyone. I was in the propagation department, my task was to insure the procurement of the annual stock.
We got orders from the yearly buyers in Levice and Palarikovo, therefore they put me out there, where they mainly spoke Hungarian. I went out to those places. Before the market, about a week earlier, I traveled out there. I arranged the huts, and rooms for the sellers. The market generally lasted one week.
After I arranged that, I was always there, naturally, at the opening, because I was the so-called ‘povernicka’ [Slovak: in charge]. When I finished work, I went home.
I’ll tell you, how I got home. There was no bus, nothing. I met our planner, who revealed to me that the director was also getting ready to go home, and that he would certainly take me by car. I didn’t know the director, that’s why the planner asked him. Of course, he’d take me home, I just had to be at the gas station at one o’clock. I was at the station at exactly one, and I got into the big black car. He sat next to the driver telling him to get moving. Ten minutes later, nobody was left alive but me.
The director said to the driver, ‘Pridaj plyn’ [Slovak: put your foot down!]. He put his foot down and we slammed into a power pole. I put my two hands in front of my face when I saw we were going to hit it, but after that I don’t know what happened.
A bus coming from the opposite direction saw the accident happen, stopped, they got out and came over to the accident site. One of them said, ‘Hey, I hear some groaning back here, somebody’s still alive.’ That’s when they saw I was lying in the back. There was a man with them, who had an axe with which they cut out a hole large enough to pull me out. Then they took me to the hospital.
That’s how I got on physical disability [pension] at the end of the 1960s. I suffered some serious injuries. My vertebrae, my spine was broken in two places, I had head injuries, but they treated me and in the end I got better.
That’s how I was on disability pension before, and only later did I start working as a tourist guide. After I was pensioned, I worked for twenty-six years at a travel agency. At the beginning, I just helped out, but then I got to like the work. I often guided Germans from the DDR [German Democratic Republic] and the Austrians also, during the so-called socialist period.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova