Priechod
Low Tatras National Park, Priechod 109, 976 11 Priechod, Slovakia
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We escaped a massacre

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Alexander Gajdoš fought in the Slovak National Uprising. After the suppression of the uprising, he went into hiding in the mountains. He was repeatedly arrested by the Germans, but was always eventually released. Once after being released, he and a friend arrived at a guerilla camp in the village of Priechod: "In the camp, we were taken care of by a man in civilian clothes. He showed us where everything was when we got there. The guerillas were celebrating and they had already been drinking quite a bit by the time we arrived. We were very tired and all we wanted to do was to find a place to sleep in camp. The man wouldn’t let us stay in the camp, even though there was plenty of space. There was no way he would be persuaded so we left and went to another place of encampment, higher up in the mountains where he advised us to go to. When we came back to the previous camp in the morning we were shocked. Everyone was dead, their throats had been cut while they were sleeping. The only one missing was the guy in civilian clothes. He had to be a German collaborator. He got the guerrillas drunk and when they were asleep he called the Germans to the camp. In order not to alert other guerrillas in the mountains, they used daggers. That guy must have liked us in some way or whatever, he just let us live."

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Alexander Gajdoš

Alexander Gajdoš

Born in 1924 in Žilina, he spent the beginnings of the war-time Slovak state working as a plumbing apprentice (the apprenticeship was illegal). Later on, the entire family spent over two years in an internment camp for Jews in Žilina. After the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising, he took advantage of the opportunity to escape and briefly joined the rebel army. He was wounded in the course of the fighting in and around Martin and Vrútky. He then lived in a mountain hideout in the Low Tatras Mountains. Again, he was arrested and imprisoned in Banská Bystrica but due to a happy coincidence he was able to evade drastic persecution and after his release joined the Czechoslovak army. Of the entire family, only his father returned home after the war, all the others disappeared in the wheelwork of the Holocaust. After the war, Alexander Gajdoš lived in Carlsbad. He died in 2008.

Priechod

Available in: English | Česky | Slovensky

The village, lying 10 kilometres north-east of Banská Bystrica, was burned down by the Nazis on 16 February 1945 for aiding partisans.

Priechod

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We escaped a massacre

We escaped a massacre

Alexander Gajdoš
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