Bohumír Baxa

* 1934

  • "His initial courage and determination to defend himself transformed into an understanding he wouldn't be able to defend anyone. He changed his mind on the situation and was considering where to place the gun. Since we had bee hives behid the workshop, he threw it into one of them and closed it. Then he walked towards the workshop. In the meantime, they arrived. I don't know exactly what was the turn of events but I was there and grandma was crying. I went up to the house which was in a terrible state. Everything was thrown out. My father had such a beautiful black desk that he made himself. On the sides, it had trays with doors and a drawer in the middle. On top, it was lined with a black frame, with textile in between. All of that was thrown out. When he returned, he didn't talk about it. Nobody felt like talking about it. But I recall this and my grandma saying they were looking for a transmitter. I don't know whether there was one."

  • "My mum received an order to pack my and my sister's luggage. In Svatobořice, they even placed newly-borns there. They made no distinction. I don't know how it happened that mum left without us. The SS-men who came to take away mum, grandpa and grandma told us they'd take care of us. We had to say goodbye. Our stuff was packed. What was next, I do not recall. There is a gap in my memory. I really don't know where I was and how long. In the end, they didn't take us with mum to the camp because the people who arrested her already knew that we were suitable for re-education in the German Reich. They had investigated whether we were of Jewish origin. This saved us."

  • "A single notion of any of our relatives being Jewish would mean my days being over. That goes without saying. And that's what saved us. Blue eyes were an advantage; being an 'aryan type'. I know for sure that we were tolerated and set for re-education, because we were small children. However, I wasn't at Jenerálka with the other kids like me; I am certain of that. The other children were placed there. I was seven years old. However, I have no idea where I ended up back then. I wasn't able to consult it with my mum and who else was supposed to tell me that?"

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Karlovy Vary, 19.07.2018

    (audio)
    duration: 01:04:46
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Karlovy Vary, 20.07.2018

    (audio)
    duration: 01:15:20
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
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The worst thing about the communists was them taking revenge on the children

Bohumír Baxa, 2018
Bohumír Baxa, 2018
photo: autoři natáčení

Bohumír Baxa was born on 22 May 1934 in Hromnice near Pilsen where his father owned a joiner workshop. His nice childhood was terminated when the German troops invaded Czechoslovakia. The Baxa family took part in the resistance. Bohumír’s parents were arrested and he himself was intended for re-education in a German family. In the end, he was saved by one of his uncles promising to bring him up in loyalty towards Nazi Germany. He had rejoined his parents after the end of the war. His uncle Antonín Liška spent the wartime abroad, serving as a RAF pilot. The communist takeover in 1948 brought their family new complications. Antonín Liška was deprived of all functions and worked as a parquet layer. Due to his bad cadre profile, Bohumír was not admitted to a general high school and instead trained to become a bricklayer. Later, he was able to graduate from a school of engineering and in the 1960s, finished university education. After 1968, he got into ever more trouble for disagreeing with the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. He worked most of his life in construction, both as a common bricklayer and as a lead project architect.