Pavol Kossey

* 1957

  • "Actually, the rosary spread there after that, and people began to pray there. Nobody counted anything there, that was impossible. After a while, the cars started to break up. We only heard it afterwards: ``Gamma two, gamma two, push them out!'' It was terribly absurd that cars would suddenly start sucking people. They seemed to be jumping - that the unit, moved by a meter, braked. I didn't see anyone being thrown to the ground directly, but I think there were such cases. It was terribly absurd, just something so incomprehensible. That armed mass and people who were essentially completely defenseless. And what was even more powerful, what I perceived was that as they immediately stood next to me, because we regrouped there and dodged those cars, at a certain moment there were two guys next to me who obviously did not belong to us, but pretended to be ours. They kicked those cars and somehow smashed them, so we immediately attacked them: ``You are not ours, 'disappear,'' do not provoke!'' because we were determined to defend ourselves with non-violence. It was something foreign, breaking a car there and it was something that no one wanted there. They then somehow withdrew. I don't know if they left completely. Maybe they went five meters and kept doing it. They just wanted to provoke a clash."

  • "We knew that this was essentially an illegal activity, and such rings were severely cracked down on everywhere. My parents also gently dissuaded me: ``Paľko, you have books, you shouldn't overdo it so much,'' but for me it was important - simply the communication with peers and the opportunity to solve and talk about things. Because it was a free environment and it was very rare at that time that a person didn't have to pretend there, didn't have to play something. We were simply looking for the truth there, and we tried to shape our lives in such a way that it was worth something. So that we can look at ourselves in the mirror and thus be good people for society in the most general and best sense of the word, who do not want to live only for themselves, but also for others. Just really in that Christian love."

  • "As for that match, when we won over the USSR, it was actually the Nedomanský, Golonka team, just these guys, so we spontaneously took to the streets at that time. I was then, but it was in the sixties, about nine, so I was about 12 years old. I mean the same with my sisters and my father, I don't know my mother, maybe she wasn't there, maybe she stayed with her younger siblings. We went - it was like the market on Miletičová Street now, there was a building where, I think, even the Russian army had some sort of headquarters; where the financial report is now. So it was a spontaneous manifestation, we were just happy, traffic was stopped. It was a big demonstration, there were thousands of people who came out spontaneously, and we were just happy to beat the Russians. So it was generally said that we charged the Russians. So it was such small manifestations that we felt beaten, and when we had the upper hand in something, it was a huge joy."

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    Bratislava, 21.02.2023

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I believe that even the bad can turn into something good in the end

Pavol Kossey was born on May 28, 1957 in Bratislava. Through his parents, he was led from early childhood to live in accordance with the Christian faith. Despite the official ban of the Greek Catholic Church and the persecution of believers, Pavol‘s parents refused to give up their faith and led their children to these values as well. Thus, during the times of deep totality, Pavol completed religious education in secret. After graduating from the Juraj Hronc grammar school, he joined the Electrical Engineering Faculty of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. During his university studies, he started attending secret meetings of the community of believers organized by the Bezák family. He actively expressed his desire for religious freedom and the observance of basic human rights by his participation in the Candle Manifestation. In the years 1981 – 1992, he worked at the Research Institute of Cables and Insulators in Bratislava. After the division of Czechoslovakia, he joined the department of foreign relations at the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic. However, he left this post due to full-time public administration studies at the Academia Istropolitana. He later applied his knowledge of foreign policy in the Christian Democratic Movement. In the years 2007-2010, he worked in the European Commission. After leaving politics, he was employed at the Institute of National Memory as director of the secretariat. He is the vice-chairman of the Forum of Christian Institutions, where he currently works as a volunteer.