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in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the First World War he became a citizen
of Czechoslovakia, a democratic island in a sea of authoritarianism, ruled by the
president-philosopher Tomáš Masaryk. During the day, Ľupták was a cobbler, in
the evenings he attended gatherings of young communists. The whole of southern
Slovakia was an industrial hub which needed workers. With several friends, Ľupták
set up the first Communist Party in Rimavská. The
authorities did not intervene and Czechoslovakia be-
came the only place in Central Europe where com-
munists were tolerated.
The Second World War caught Ján Ľupták in Hun-
gary. In November 1938, in the Viennese Belvedere Pal-
ace, Hitler decided on the division of Czechoslovakia.
Southern Slovakia went to Hungary. For the people of
Rimavská this was nothing new. Twenty years earlier
Hungarian communists fought for the town. They failed
in their confrontation with a legion of captives and
deserters from the Imperial Royal Army who fought
for the independence of Czechoslovakia.
Ľupták spoke Hungarian, like most citizens of Ri-
mavská. In the end, the border is a stone’s throw away.
Until today, the majority of those living there identify
themselves as “Sobotians”, that is to say, neither Slovak, nor Hungarian; but simply
as people from Rimavská Sobota. Language was not a barrier and people on both
sides have known each other for a while. Only the new laws were cumbersome.
The Hungarians forced a Magyarisation of private enterprise and in order to save
his business, Ľupták changed his citizenship to Hungarian.
He was lucky that he was not a Jew. As Profesor Oľga Bodorová writes: “Jews
began to settle down in Rimavská only in the 1840s. They were treated as others,
their property was confiscated. Every Jew was assigned a commissioner, who man-
aged their business.” Before the war, over half of the factories from southern Slo-
vakia belonged to Jews. In April and May 1944, after the pro-German collaborator
Döme Sztójay came to power in Hungary, three ghettoes appeared. In the summer
trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau began.
Ľupták kept his head down as much as he could. He did not want to play hero.
He had a wife and a son (Branislav) to care for. During the war, his second son, Ján
Jr, was born. The Ľuptáks did not get carried away by the enthusiasm of the Slo-
vak national uprising, directed against the Germans and the collaborating Slova-
kian government. The 18th SS division, “Horst Wessel”, set off from Rimavská to
quash the rebellion, although many inhabitants sympathise with the insurgents.Jan Ľupták was
born in the
Austro-Hungarian
Empire. After
the First World
War he became
a citizen of
Czechoslovakia, a
democratic island
in the sea of
authoritarianisms.Reports The curse of Ján Ľupták’s duck, Dariusz Kałan