Granica podzieliła regiony tatrzańskie, które w czasach imperium Habsburgów tworzyły jeden oragnizm. Doprowadziło to do gwałtownego wzrostu przemytu - zarówno towarów, jak i ludzi. Przemytnicy rzadko przejmowali się konfliktami narodowościowymi. Liczyły się interesy i współpraca. W rezultacie przyjaźnie, a nawet małżeństwa łączyły ludzi ponad granicami. Ten ryzykowny proceder był prowadzony przed, w trakcie i po II wojnie światowej.

Przemyt w regionie tatrzańskim odegrał szczególnie ważną rolę w czasie okupacji. Był między innymi  kanałem ucieczki Żydów z zajętej przez nazistów Polski. Z kolei ze Słowacji przemycano żywność, której na Podhalu brakowało z powodu rabunkowej polityki gospodarczej, prowadzonej przez niemieckich okupantów. 

Fragment zeznania złożonego przez Elżbietę Kopeć przed Okręgową Komisją Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Krakowie w 1974 roku. Zbiory IPN

W okresie okupacji mieszkałam z mężem – Stanisławem Kopciem i dwojgiem dzieci w Gronkowie. Mieszkaliśmy przy samej granicy słowackiej. Pole nasze przylegało do pola Słowaka zamieszkałego w Białej na Słowacji. W czasie orki wiosennej mąż spotkał się z orzącym po drugiej stronie granicy Słowakiem i domówili się, żeby mąż przyszedł na Słowację, to sprzeda mu mąki. U nas wówczas był dość duży głód.

W dniu 8 maja 1942 r. wieczorem mąż wybrał się na Słowację i wracał nocą. Wracając  natknął się na strażników ze strażnicy granicznej. Strażnicy strzelali do męża i jedna kula trafiła męża z tyłu na wysokości kości krzyżowej i utkwiła w jelitach. Męża zabrali strażnicy na swoją placówkę i następnie zawiadomili mnie jeszcze w nocy, że mąż ranny znajduje się u nich. Zabrałam męża i odwiozłam do Szpitala w Nowym Targu, gdzie po dwóch dniach zmarł. (...) Rozmawiałem z Komendantem tej placówki o nazwisku Bryks i ten powiedział mi, że niepotrzebnie mąż uciekał.

The border divided Tatra regions which had constituted a single unit under the Habsburg Empire. This led to a rapid increase of smuggling – of both goods and people. Smugglers were rarely concerned with nationality conflicts. What mattered was business and cooperation. As a result, friendships and even marriages connected people across borders.

This risky business was carried out before, during, and after World War II. Smuggling in the Tatra region played a particularly important role during the occupation. It was a channel for Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied Poland. In turn, food was smuggled from Slovakia, which was in short supply in the Podhale region due to the plundering economy carried out by the German occupiers. 

Excerpts from the testimony of Elżbieta Kopeć given before the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland in 1973-1974. Collection of IPN

During the occupation I was living in Gronkowo with my husband, Stanisław Kopeć, and our two children. We lived right by the Slovakian border. Our field bordered with the field of a Slovak living in Biała in Slovakia. While ploughing in the spring, my husband met the Slovak who was ploughing on the other side of the border, and they agreed that my husband would go over to the Slovak side and buy some flour from him. That was a fairly hungry time for us.

On 8th May 1942 my husband went to Slovakia in the evening and was coming home at night-time. On his way back, he ran into guards from the border station. The guards fired at my husband, and one bullet hit him from behind, at the height of the sacrum, and lodged in his intestines. The guards took my husband to their station and contacted me, still that same night, to tell me he was wounded and was at their place. I took my husband and brought him to the hospital in Nowy Targ, where he died after two days. (...) I spoke to the commander of this station, a man named Bryks, and he told me that my husband should not have started running” .

The present-day border between Poland and Slovakia is more than just a demarcation line of 541 kilometres. It is also the space that has shaped the lives and experiences of the local inhabitants. Moving back and forth, the arbitrarily drawn line divided families, friends and neighbours.

After the First World War Poles and Slovaks contended for the multicultural regions of Orava and Spiš. The northern part of these lands was given to the Second Polish Republic.

In 1938, taking advantage of Czechoslovakia’s difficult situation, Poland demanded the cession of four more villages by the border. Soon afterwards, the Slovakia – allied with the German Third Reich – attacked Poland. In 1939 the entirety of the disputed territory was incorporated into the First Slovak Republic.

After the Second World War, northern Orava and Spiš returned to Poland. However, a large portion of the local population expected the territory to be annexed into Czechoslovakia.

A series of violent demonstrations took place in spring and summer 1945. Slovaks destroyed Citizens’ Militia stations in Łapsze Niżne, Jabłonka, Chyżne and Podwilk. There were casualties on both sides.

Another assault was made [on the Militia station in Podwilk] on 4 Jul. 1945, where a gang arrived in a large force, approximately 1000 people, whereupon three militiamen fell in the fight, and the Slovak gang finished some of them off with the butts of their guns. I myself and the remainder of the staff was taken prisoner, and was beaten until unconscious, with three ribs broken and several incised wounds on the head.

Only following a message sent to the County Headquarters of the Militia in Nowy Targ, informing of the Slovak gang’s attack on our station, was the Jabłonka unit of the Border Protection Corps instructed to come to our aid, whereupon we were indeed rescued from the gang in Lipnica Wielka, and transported to the hospital in Nowy Targ – testimony of Michał Żarski, former militia officer

By the end of 1945 it became clear that the shape of the border would not be revised. The number of incidents decreased. In 1946, however, Orava and Spiš became the arena of intense partisan activity carried out by the “Błyskawica” group.

Slovak homesteads were an important source of supplies for partisan soldiers. “Ogień’s” men robbed the residents of Spiš and Orava of at least several dozen horses, several dozen cattle, several dozen pigs and a variety of other goods, including cash, carts, horse tack, jewellery and watches.

Józef Kuraś’s notes indicate that some of these steps were aimed against Slovak activists. Undoubtedly, however, the partisans also applied the principle of collective responsibility. “Ogień” imposed high “kontrybucje”, or penalties in kind, on entire villages (for instance Dursztyn).  Economic exploitation was the next stage in the dispute over the ownership of Orava and Spiš.

It was on 8 Nov. [1946] at 9 PM that unknown individuals came to our house and started knocking, some on the window, some on the door, and kept saying to let them in, that the Polish Army was coming.

Then they told us to give them the key to the cowshed. I gave them no key, because my key got taken by this one servant that was sleeping in the barn. So they grabbed the axes and started to chop down the door, and after some time they chopped them right off. When they got into the cowshed, they called for my mother in law, and started to beat and kick her, they beat her with a gun, and when my mother [in law] lost consciousness, they carried her from the cowshed into the house. After such horrible torture they inflicted on me, they got to looting.

After some time I saw through the window that they were leading my three cows onto the road. Later still they came back from the road to the house and were searching around for my husband’s clothing, asking “where is that son of a b…ch” – testimony of Cecylia Sarniak, resident of Podsarnie in Orava, describing the assault done by the 3rd company of “Błyskawica”.

Illustrations:

The border between the First Slovak Republic and General Government  on the Dunajec river near the castle in Niedzica, 1940. Collection of NAC

The border crossing in Lysa Polana on the border between the General Government and the First Slovak Republic, 1940. Collection of NAC

High Mountain Company of the Polish Army on their march through the Javorowa Valley, 1919. Collection of NAC

A regional group from Spiš in Krakow, interwar period. Collection of NAC

A highlander from Podwilk, interwar period. Collection of NAC