You don’t have to be psychic to see the future of America, you only need to study the history of Czechoslovakia to see that the same fascist playbook is being employed by the Republican party. The spirit of the Fabry family and their friends in exile have been helping me all these years, preparing me for the rise of fascism and giving me courage to share their stories of resistance here, as an education and warning to all. It is more important than ever that we speak the truth boldly and with heartfelt conviction, because it is the communication of truth that dictators fear the most. We need to support independent newspapers and journalists who are risking everything to report the truth.
The next document comes from the Director of Verbandsdruckerei A.G. (Association Printing Company), Bern, Switzerland, dated 26 February 1958, a declaration on behalf of Dr. Pavel Fabry – “a good patriot and friend of Switzerland”.
Declaration
I have known Dr. Pavel Fabry from Bratislava, Slovakia, since 1946, when he came to me through the mediation of WIFAG (Winkler, Fallert & Co. AG Bern) to buy our rotary press, which we were about to replace. The purchase was urgent because he wanted to use this machine in Slovakia, as the already advanced communist power had also spread to the printing works. This was done with the aim of preventing the democratic parties (Democratic and Social Democratic Parties) from printing election propaganda for the upcoming elections. For this reason, Dr. Fabry wanted a machine so that he could continue the election propaganda with printed matter in a close circle with his democratic party friends.
The purchase came about partly through our cooperation and because we knew the machine would serve anti-communist purposes. The machine was also exported, and it was thanks to this circumstance that the elections against communism in Slovakia were so successful, as I was told. The price totaled 80,000 Swiss francs, which Dr. Fabry paid in cash from his own resources. During the negotiations, I got to know Dr. Fabry as a good patriot and friend of Switzerland.
“Rudolf Frastacky – chief representative of the Union of Small Farmers’ Mutual Savings Banks and one of the significant figures in the Agrarian Movement from the end of the thirties and first half of the forties, was one of the personalities from Slovak economic and political life, who spent the rest of his life in exile, because of the changed political conditions after February 1948.”
[…]
“His position in companies representing Slovak sugar abroad enabled him to make regular business trips abroad, especially to Switzerland. As one of the representatives of the civil wing of the anti-fascist struggle during the Second World War, he used his legal trips abroad to establish courier contacts with foreign resistance elements. Together with Jaromir Kopecky, a member of the Czechoslovak legation to the League of Nations in Geneva, he built on Swiss soil one of the most intensive and widest links between the leadership of the domestic resistance on one side and the Czechoslovak government in exile in London on the other.”
The undersigned Rudolf Frastacky, elected Vice President of the the Slovak National Council and the National Government, and President of the Official Slovak-Swiss Society, currently exiled in Toronto, where he is President of the Council of Free Slovakia in Canada, willingly declares:
I have known Dr. Pavel Fabry through his public activities since my younger years. His self-sacrificing contribution to the consolidation of the situation after World War 1, especially in the eastern part of Slovakia, was widely recognized, and this fact is also highlighted in books from this era. The Slovak encyclopedia (page 37) also commends this activity.
In particular, in the suppression of the Hungarian-Communist invasion under the leadership of Bela Kun and the notorious Rakosi, Dr. Fabry rendered great service as plenipotentiary commissioner of the government at the Eastern High Command of Slovakia, and since that time he has been considered an eminent enemy of communism.
After leaving government service, he devoted himself to his legal career, particularly representing industry, especially the agricultural sector. As Vice-President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Industrial Federation, he endeavored to comply with the wishes of the Swiss delegation in the trade agreements, particularly with regard to quotas for industrial agricultural products.
For the industry under his leadership as President of the association, he always imported the machinery, refrigeration systems, boilers, etc., from Switzerland.
When I founded the Slovak-Swiss Society, my ambition was to win Dr. Pavel Fabry’s cooperation, not only for the reasons mentioned above regarding his economic activities, but mainly because it was generally known that he was actually of Swiss descent, as his ancestors immigrated to what was then Upper Hungary – now Slovakia – and they themselves, as well as their descendants, played a considerable role in economic life, as well as spiritual and ecclesiastical life.
Dr. Fabry naturally took on this role with enthusiasm and self-sacrifice and was spontaneously elected as active vice president of this society – again for the reasons stated above. He hosted the society free of charge in his own premises in Tolstojgasse [Tolstoy Lane, Vienna, Austria], and the society’s written agenda was maintained by him or one of his employees. He contributed large sums (tens of thousands) to the budget. During visits by prominent Swiss personalities from the economic and scientific world, he made his house and his property available to the guests in Slovakia in order to fully achieve the goals of their trips, as these personalities always acknowledged with gratitude.
He placed particular emphasis on economic relations and supported them with all his might. I will give one example among others. When a shortage of malt arose in Switzerland in 1946/47, he ensured that the Slovak breweries provided large quantities of malt and malted barley from their own reserves in order to supplement the quotas for Switzerland.
Even if I cannot cite all his deeds, which he carried out in the context of his above-mentioned activity, I can declare with a clear conscience that Switzerland can be proud of this loyalty to the homeland of his ancestors.
Vlado 