New Eastern Europe - November-December 2017

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Branislav had not visited Tomášova. If he saw his family it was at Kurinec, a lake
on the outskirts of Rimavská. The surroundings were similar to that seen in Nikita
Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the sun. There were cottages, kayaks, boats and sunbathers.
In the mid-1960s, the Ľuptáks bought a piece of land there. The three of the men,
Ján, Branislav and Ján Jr, built a small dacha. By then Branislav had a son with Ilona,
a three-year old named Mirek. Another one would be born soon – Ján – the third
one in the family.
In August 1968 the Hungarian army entered Slovakia for another brotherly
rescue. And the family was again taken over by evil. Perhaps it was, once again, the
curse of that stupid duck. In Kurinec, Ján attacked his eldest son with an axe. The
blade barely missed the head of little Mirek, sleeping on his dad’s shoulders. Bran-
islav took the axe and threw it into the lake, shouting that he does not want to know
his father anymore. They sold the dacha and they split the profit three ways.
Ján died in 1977 after a long battle with lung cancer.
But his family found little peace. In the Ľupták family,
madness is passed not only from father to son. It also
passes from brother to brother. Branislav had always
kept Ján Jr at a distance because he was the junior and
the father’s favourite. No one had any doubts that he
was not the son of the Jew whom Emilia served. And
he did not take Branislav’s side when the father swung
the axe. He supported the communists. The younger
Ľupták cannot forgive his brother for the way he treated their father. When Ján Jr
announced that the whole family will be buried in one grave, together with their
parents, Branislav threatened: “Over my dead body!”
“This is the dacha.” Michal points towards a two-storey cottage surrounded by
a net and an ebullient garden, ten meters away from the lake, five minutes from
the forest. “If not for the madmen, we would be landowners.”

Letters

During the communist period the small city of Rimavská Sobota flourished, like
most industrial towns. “We used to call it ‘our little feeding centre’. In one place
you had a sugar mill, a dairy and meat plant, mills, a brewery and a canned food
factory,” says Alina, a historian from the local museum. “And then it all collapsed.
Now, in order to make ends meet, I run a dog breeding business on the side.”
In 1992, Slovakia’s GDP shrank by over 20 per cent since 1989. The food indus-
try collapsed. Branislav lost his job at the state agricultural farm. The Tauris meat

In 1977 Jan Ľupták

died after a long

battle with lung

cancer. But his

family found

little peace.

The curse of Ján Ľupták’s duck, Dariusz Kałan Reports