Blessed Ján Havlík

Ján Havlík was born on 12 February 1928 at Vlčkovany in Slovakia into a very poor family. In 1943 he entered the apostolic school of the Congregation of the Mission at Banská Bystrica and in 1949 began his novitiate at Ladce. The communist persecution closed the apostolic school in 1950; he was moved to Kostolná for a supposed fortnight of political re-education and then set to work on the dam at Púchov and in a state firm at Nitra, while continuing his formation clandestinely until superiors and seminarians were arrested on 29 October 1951. After brutal interrogation and torture he was sentenced on 5 February 1953 to fourteen years for high treason, reduced on appeal to ten, and was held in the labour camps of Ostrov and Bytíz near Příbram.

In 1958 a further year was added after he was accused of belonging to a clandestine association of prisoners, a charge he answered by saying he had only evangelised and prayed with fellow inmates. Prison ruined his health; released on 29 October 1962, irreparably broken, he died suddenly on 27 December 1965.