(2) Schools.

    (2) Schools in Czechoslovakia 1940-1954

Pre-school at Tehelné pole,  Bratislava, 1940. I am standing in top row sixth from left.

First grade at Vajnorská ul, Bratislava, 1942. I am standing in the middle row fifth from left.

Here I am not standing anywhere having been most likely sick.

    I graduated from the primary school in Dynamitka in 1946, with highest marks in all subjects. I attended this school from the house belonging to my grandparents. Secondary school I started in gymnasium at Kalinčiakova ulica, and due to the proximity to where my parents lived I had to live with them in their flat at Nová doba 3.
    I knew all the children around Nová doba 3, because I went to the nearby Grade 1 of primary school from there. Also, I slept in my parents' flat on many occasions, until the longing for “home” at my grandparents' house prevailed. And I liked the open space of Kuchajda, which the block of flats called Nová doba 3 was bordering on. At the time Kuchajda was a grassy, slightly undulating plain between Vajnorská and Trnavská ulica. It extended from the football stadium SK Bratislava up to the electrical power station in the distance of about 2 or 3 kilometres. Allegedly the river Danube used to flood the area on occasions, to which the gravelly soil at Kuchajda borne silent testimony. We used to dig holes in that soft soil, and from those we used to fight or play, or just spent times of laziness.
    Soldiers from the nearby army barracks were also digging their holes there. In the lower parts of undulations used to be water retained for a few days or weeks after rains, and there were frogs and other water animals.On the edge of Kuchajda at the Trnavská ulica end there stood one solitary house; at the opposite end, on the edge of Vajnorská ulica, was a fishpond used by the nearby people as a rubbish tip – a great Slovakian tradition. Rubbish also used to be deposited along Vajnorská ulica, between Nová doba 3 and the aforementioned fishpond. For us, children, it was a goldmine, we were scouring the tip for interesting things for hours on end. Towards the end of WW2 there was a military encampment there, with anti-aircraft cannons and searchlights.
    After the war ended there was, for a couple of months, a Russian military camp, which pleased the local female population immensely. After their departure, there was a market vegetable garden, run by a dishevelled sun-baked Bulgarian, who was supplying vegetables to anybody far and wide. His office was in a hut woven from branches and reeds, the same material as he used for fencing. He was a friendly man whose language was not easy to understand, but despite all the boys around being rascals no one ever stole anything from him, or vandalised anything in that garden. On occasions, in the hollows we discovered kissing or wrestling couples. Kissing we could not understand, for at that age the girls for us were but clumsy, stumbling, crying dobbers, whom it was best to avoid. The couples we usually started pelting with pebbles and clods until the male half disentangled himself and chased us away with horrible swearing and threats.
    For us, Kuchajda ended where there is the railway track today. Not that we were not allowed to go further, but somehow we felt it as the right size of our space. In the opposite direction we ventured but seldom. That way, around Stará pracháreň, there lived fairly vicious urchins (how are you all, Pongrác, Šmidovič, Kovačič, Lošonský and others – wanaanothafistinyasnout?), and also, it was full of high-rise building, and short of free space. There is no joy in playing soccer in the confined space of their enclosed yards, where a fat woman is hurling abuses at you from every second window. That way I used to go only shopping with my mother: Budúcnosť (grocery), kočkavmechu (lucky dip), glazier Gramblička, butcher Haslinger, stationer Cichra, baker Petr – these were the names of the long-forgotten shops. And that unsavoury direction became my daily routine on the way to the secondary school, which was smack in the middle of that dangerous Stará pracháreň.
    State gymnasium No. 3.

It was a newish imposing edifice on Kalinčiakova ulica. I was in the class called Prima. Higher classes were called Sekunda, Tercia, Kvarta, Kvinta, Sexta, Septima and Oktáva. The denizens of Oktáva looked for us completely grown up, with deep voices, and even a little moustache here and there. The names in that Prima are a bit hazy in my memory nowadays. Identical twins Khandl from Rača, Ivan Kúdela, Milan Jergeľ, Milan Lettrich, Valent Hudec, Karol Divín, Tóno Mišík, Franci Kruml, and that’s all. There were no girls in our class. And the “Professors” I remember even less: Bollardt (an interesting person), Ján Hučko, Hábová, padre Daniš (also interesting, there’ll be mention of him in chapter called Socialism) ...
    We were addressed by the “professors” as Mister. There were new subjects, such as Latin language. Drawing under Hučko (a sculptor of some note) became one of the most important subjects, and since then I feel resentment towards subjects where some inborn talent is required: singing, calligraphy, spelling, certain sports, and others. For example, at Masaryčka a couple of years later, I sat for two years next to Róber Schurmann, whose father was a painter of some note, and Róbert inherited some of it. I used to watch with bated breath every time Róbert deigned to put his pencil to paper: every humble line on his piece of paper was alive! And not only because of its shape: he knew how to press the pencil a bit harder, for instance, to indicate the illuminated part of the object, or give that line some other meaning, like a fold in the garment – or, or, I am unable to express it - it was inborn in him. His marks in that subject were the best in class, mine, and many others’ the worst. I was champion in literature, spelling, sports, with good ear for music.
    I always felt sorry for friends whose spelling was poor, who were unable to sing do-re-mi without a “spelling error”. By all this I wish to say that it is abominable to torment children, and give them negative labels for life, with something they are unable to comprehend, let alone learn!!!The schools should, instead, try and find each pupil’s individual talent – and there is talent in each and all of us – and promote and nurture that particular talent. In the case of, for instance, lack of musical ear, the music teacher should try and find what those unfortunates CAN hear, or perceive, in the multitude of tones. Maybe there is some logic in their tone deafness; maybe there is some enthusiasm in them to create their own music, whether it consists of two or three tones they can tell apart, or some completely new and weird combination of melodies, that could enrich the music as a whole. Instead, we tend to shout them down the moment they open their beaks ... And the same, ab-so-lu-te-ly, applies to all other subjects at all schools (and all cull-de-sacks of life). In practical terms, the schools at every age level should be organized NOT according to the age (the present time-dishonoured simplistic way), but according to the abilities, inclinations, talents, etc., of the pupils (with a few general subjects thrown in).
    I did not like the hallowed Tretie štátne gymnázium. In my previous – primary – school in Dynamitka I was used to a degree of freedom, within and without, the school. Here I did not like the discipline, the high-rise houses around were suffocating to me, and the “city” manners of my classmates felt both comical and repulsive. I began to behave in an unpleasant manner. Not consciously, not in spite, simply something in me was telling me to be rebellious. I was kicked out from that school after only a few months.
    Next week I found myself in another school, Prvé štátne gymnasium, where I was tearfully begged-in by my mother (she was always in tears, whenever she came to my school – was I really that bad?). This new school was an old, shabby and mouldy looking building in the Hungarian style, similar to the nearby Modrý kostolík (Blue chapel). In the classrooms there were imposing display-windows full of stuffed birds and animals. I commuted to that school by tram from my grandparent’s house, the entire trip one way taking well in excess of 1 hour on a good day. I felt better in that school, but most of the names of my fellow-pupils escape me: Imi Csiba, Sirko, Rosa, Petes, Vilikovský, Skalák, Foltýnová, Kramárová, Tonkovič… One of them died of peritonitis, and I was impressed by the speech made by one of our fellow-pupils at his funeral. No so much for the content, but for the way it was presented, like an adult – he must have become late a lawyer, or a politician.
    This school for me did not last long: one of the many communist school reforms interfered, and the next year I found myself at the famous Masaryčka at Tehelné pole. There I met again many a former fellow-pupils from the school on Kalinčiakova ulica. The teachers I remember only scantily: Lobotka (keen-and-ready on using a bamboo stick on our bums), Chrapanka (an avid face-slapper; her son, whom she called Janušo, was in my class, and he was trying to avoid her as much as he could), padre Čakánek (mentioned in the chapter called Socialism), and finally, kind and pleasant Mrs. Mičušíková. At that school I spent two years when the next school reform sent me to a gymnasium at Dunajská ulica.

    School holidays.
    School years ended with the end of June, started early in September. With my mother I used to spend July and August in Humpolec, where the father used to come as well, for a couple of weeks. Since I was about 15 I worked at various short-term jobs. One of the first was in that Humpolec, at the Jednotné Zemědělské Družstvo (United Agricultural Cooperative). All of about 6 weeks I was transporting bags of grain from fields to storerooms, making sheaves of the freshly mowed crop, cleaning storerooms, cranking the hand-powered winnowing machine, and such.
    I refused to go to Humpolec next year, and instead I found work in Bratislava, which I continued doing every year until I started at university in nearby Nitra. I worked in the Agricultural Cooperative at Vajnory (building stable for about 100 cows), Agri. Coop. Jurajov dvor, where I was in charge of a wooden wagon pulled by two horses. Since then, I remember quite a few words pertaining to that type of activity. Apropos, Jurajov dvor: for a week I was helping to build straw heaps. The foreman was a famous straw heap builder whom we called Azapád báči (a wordplay on common Hungarian swearword): he was a diminutive, elderly Hungarian with a rich store of Hungarian swearwords. Apparently, he was famous for his ability to store the straw so that the heap could not be dislodged by the strongest of winds. I also worked in the far eastern Czechoslovakia (Slanec, Kalša, Kuzmice) building railway line to the Soviet union called Trať družby (R/line of Friendship), at State hospital in Bratislava reconstruction of the x-ray department (using extremely heavy mortar containing barium), and so on. For the work I received salary, but the money used to be spent the moment they were received: to buy lollies, cinema tickets, later to buy sweet alcohols – once, with a friend Dušan Štukovský we got drunk like fish from a bottle of pear liquor...

    Gymnázium Dunajská ulica.
    That was the most agreeable of all my schools. Not so much the building, and certainly not the street, which, a few years after the war, looked rather shabby, the same as the rest of the nearby centre of the town. It was the fellow-pupils, who to me felt as if they were just waiting for me. I was at that school for two years, first year in classroom B – nothing against it -, but during recess I always found myself with the pupils from classroom C. From that B I can remember the names of only three (coincidentally seriously beautiful) girls: Elena Diačiková, Valika Triznová and Marienka Wintersteinerová. And, to my surprise, next school year I found myself in the classroom C:

    From that classroom C I remember the names of nearly everybody: Bohuš Šimkovic, Paľo Klenovič, Karol Viničenko, Karol Ostertág, Jožo Týleš, Ferenc Mašek, Bohumír “Frico” Bäuml, Gabo Čeněk, “Pinky” Jozef Gratzl, Tiborko Szebényi, Paľko Dillinger, Jano Fehér, Pišta Papp, Vlado Hokynek, etc., etc ... And Viera Gránerka, Alica Lenická, Magda Pálková, Dulka Straková, Mariša Kuševa, Agáta Ozvaldová, Šproncka, Marta Števlíča, sweet little Olinka Hanáčková, Karolínka Schlosserka, Anka Rosívalová, “Buchtička” Mária Buchtová, Zuza Langerka, Toňa Lassová, “Sopa” Milena Sopóci… Mentioned here are those who either sat near me, played volleyball or football with me, or who worked with me somewhere during school recess; I apologise to those whose names I omitted. Missing from here are Zuza Langerka and Alica Lenická, both excellent girls; both were kicked out from the school or “political reasons”. What those reasons were was never discussed, we were scared...

At that schooI had friends outside this classroom, of course. The names I remember are (future famous lawyers) Friedl, Fitt and Igorko Hoza. The last one was the son of the then famous opera singer and the four of us used to play at Igorko's flat when the parents were not home. The flat was in a block of flats on the side of the Justičný palác (where, at the time, and unbeknown to us, many so-called political prisoners were being tortured and murdered). The moment his parents came home we were noisily expelled and continued to play in the nearby streets, parks and even cemetery.
    A that school I did not have special friends, for I was equally fond of everybody. Once, one of the beautiful girls took me to her home and introduced me to her mother. To say that I did not like her mother would be a huge understatement, and I felt that my sentiment was reciprocated: she was looking at me with the same expression as she would be looking at a cockroach, or a squashed snail. Thirty years later the same mother published her book of memoirs (in Swedish!). In the Slovakian version of the book, I read that “her little daughter brought home her first sweetheart...”, (something I was not aware of at the time), “and they were a lovely couple, but he seemed to me rather stupid.” From these last words I am sure she had me in mind: incisive diagnose, Mrs. L, I WAS stupid! Socially – certainly! And my school reports were silent testimony to it, mostly second worst marks, sometimes THE worst mark, and as a sign of high achievement – a medium mark (the best marks were never even threatened by me, let alone achieved)...
    And the teachers I was always allergic to – except for those in this class, to my surprise I liked them: Kornélia Kropiláková – who could not like this formidable name, and she was a formidable teacher as well; Hanuljak, Erdelský, Petrák - good and decent man, but totally unsuitable to be a teacher; Stračár, highly educated and wise man (the two properties are often mutually exclusive), Čipková, tough lady and a good woman. And Šefranková, a cripple on crutches, teacher of the Russian language. Once, reciting a passage from Eugene Onegin in front of the class I addressed her directly with the words taken from the poem “when are you going to be taken to hell”, she remarked, dryly, in Russian, “after the bell"... That simple remark was a spark that ignited my fondness of the language.
    Russian songs at the time used to be popular, and with Zuza Langerka we used to sing at full throat “Druzjá ljubljú já léééninskie góóri”, “Dalikó, dalikó, gde kačújut tumány”, or the haunting "Pa dikim stepjám zábajkálja.... And who could resist the magic of the words “Beléjet párus adinókij, v tumáne mórja galubóm”. Looking at this text I think that the language could gain plenty of followers if it could get rid of the mediaeval "azbuka" script.
    With some of the faces on that ‘photo I am in email contact even now, after some 60 years: Gabo Čeněk: absolutely and 100% tops in all subjects, from “tops-in-all-subjects” family (his father was the author of textbooks in mathematics and geometry), physically slow like a sloth, with whom I never spoke while in the classroom (possibly due to the towering difference in marks). I discovered him in the cyberspace a few years ago, and in the course of near daily contact through email we became soul mates – until he died a couple of years later. I miss him; I miss him so much it hurts! And then Pinky Gratzl, had-been-everywhere-knew-everything type of guy, exceedingly sociable and intelligent little man – he is, thank God, still alive; Fero Mašek with his beautiful (and not only physically!) wife L'ubica and talented son Jano. With the I was lucky to have briefly met in 2006, and every one of their emails remains for days on end a bouquet of fragrant flowers on my desk.
    Nothing good lasts forever, however, and after two years in paradise (the school itself was on the corner of Rajská ulica = Paradise street) we were hit by another of many school reforms. As the result of this I ended up in the 12^th form of Jedenásťročná stredná škola n Bratislava-Krasňany. This is how we looked at the end of school year:

  Back of the photograph:

    We were a motley crew, collected higgledy-piggledy from all kinds of schools from around Bratislava. I knew many of my fellow pupils from the variety of previous schools; since the school was on the eastern end of town there appeared a few boys and girls from the nearby village of Rača as well. At this school I was given my first and only best mark from all my secondary schools – it was from professor Iljin, teacher of Russian. Slightly eccentric, like all Russians, teachers of Russian before him, who indulged in phantasies that I was a good student of the language, despite sitting at faraway Kamchatka, as he used to say (that is, behind the rearmost desk).
    I was not good in the eyes of schools, where the old German way of teaching was being rigidly practised (“learn everything by heart from page xx to page yy!”), I only managed to master Russian accent, I liked Russian poetry and nursery rhymes; and songs; and literature; and paintings; and the certain Russian roly-poly-ness and disorderly conduct – these were possibly the reasons behind my only top mark. The class was led by professor Hrdá, a pleasant woman of uncertain age. Drahovský was geometry teacher, an erudite and cultured person. And there was Csvikota, a stubborn Hungarian with the most admirable Hungarian pronunciation of Slovakian words. And he was an admirable person as well! Phys-ed teacher, fond of rugby and track-and-field sports. Good and unforgettable person, oh, Lord, give us more of them... And all of a sudden, the final exams were behind us, the secondary schools likewise, there was a brief eruption of feeling of absolute freedom – and now, what to do next???