On 13 October 1887 a boy was born in this town who became the most argued-about Slovak of the twentieth century: Jozef Tiso. He trained as a Catholic priest, went into politics with the Slovak People's Party, and in 1939 became head of the Slovak State. He belongs here, in the Austria-Hungary era, for a reason worth saying out loud: nothing about the small Váh town he was born in explains what he later did, and a birthplace is not an explanation. It is simply a fact about Bytča, and the town has to carry it.Trinásteho októbra 1887 sa v tomto meste narodil chlapec, z ktorého sa stal najspornejší Slovák dvadsiateho storočia: Jozef Tiso. Vyštudoval za katolíckeho kňaza, vstúpil do politiky v Hlinkovej slovenskej ľudovej strane a roku 1939 sa postavil na čelo Slovenského štátu. Patrí sem, do obdobia Rakúsko-Uhorska, a stojí za to povedať to nahlas: nič na malom považskom mestečku, v ktorom sa narodil, nevysvetľuje, čo neskôr urobil — rodisko nie je vysvetlenie. Je to jednoducho fakt o Bytči a mesto ho musí uniesť.
