WWII: OSS Tragedy in Slovakia

Joe Morton accompanied the two infantry lieutenants for two days, always adding to his journal. His U.S. Navy photographer, Nelson Paris, took movie film of the training sessions. At times the experience in Slovakia seemed like a lark, but hardened German battalions led by capable officers were on the march, and some of the Americans sensed they were on shaky ground. Morton, meanwhile, interviewed every person he found. He requested an interpreter from Golian's headquarters.

Josef Piontek was ordered to report to the Velitelsvo, where Jerry Mican interviewed him, and immediately passed the charming young man off to Morton. Piontek' diary would later prove to be an excellent source of information a half-century later.

Piontek moved into the Narodny Dom Hotel with Morton. "He gave me a great deal of work. He asked me to arrange for interviews with certain people. These people later told me they wanted all questions written out in advance." Piontek was totally reliable and formed a strong bond with the American correspondent.

Another odd twist in the Banska Bystrica scene was the emergence of Cecilia Wojewoda, a Polish refugee journalist, who had fled Hungary in March with her husband when the Germans took over in March, 1944. When she learned Americans were in the city, she eagerly sought them out.

Wojewoda's husband had been a member of the Polish consulate in Budapest. "I got to know an American War correspondent, Joe Morton. It was like a heavenly message to me," she wrote after the war. "I was working for a Slovakian press agency in Banska Bystrica. [Meeting someone who had never lived under the Nazis was an amazing experience], she later wrote, I was taken aback with joy. It meant freedom at last. I looked forward to a meeting with this war correspondent and was [introduced] to him in one of the two coffee houses in the town. It was Joseph Morton. . . . I saw him every day."

Wojewoda was well educated and spoke several languages. She and her husband invited Holt Green and Jim Gaul to dinner and played bridge afterwards, a curious pastime, it seems now, for people literally living on the edge and facing the imminent arrival of German storm troopers.

Wojewoda was one of those unique personalities who occasionally turn up in unlikely places. A sensitive, sophisticated intellectual in a hellish world, she remembered Jim Gaul. [He had] " handsome good looks," [and was] "a man full of energy. I loaned him my typewriter as he wanted to write something. [Once he] wanted some milk to drink and some fruit, and the following day I was able to get both for him. He subsequently visited me and my husband often, and we had one wonderful dinner party. He told me how much he enjoyed it and that it helped him forget our dreadful circumstances. He later came to us and gave us advice on where to flee when the Germans arrived. . . . We were such friends. I begged to go along with the Americans. Now it seems [Gaul] was right, that it would have put us in greater danger."