Josef Bednář

* 1930

  • “They summoned me to the detention committee to Prostějov, where everyone was scrutinized. They asked me about the archbishop Beran, because he had a trial and was not allowed to return home. I said I could not say anything about him because I did not know him that well. It made him so angry that he jumped out of his chair and screamed that I would never forget it. I do not know if it was the cause of my enlistment to auxiliary troops, or the fact I wanted to work independently.”

  • "After them the Russians came and that was a real mess. They robbed us. We put a couple up in our bedroom, a man and a woman. My parents had a savings book and some money in the wardrobe. Everything got lost."

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    Slatinice, 09.03.2018

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    duration: 01:20:09
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Out of what I earned in all those years, I just bought a sewing machine for my wife

Josef Bednář
Josef Bednář
photo: archiv pamětníka

Josef Bednář was born on 4 August, 1930 in Olšany near Prostějov. He apprenticed a vulcanizer and together with his uncle he wanted to set up a licencing trade. At that time the communist party ruled the country without any limits, which publicly opposed any business undertaking. Therefore Josef Bednář and his uncle did not manage to open their business. Moreover his undertaking efforts were the reason he was sent to the auxiliary technical troops (PTP) in 1951. He worked in the mines of Kladno region for twenty-seven months. In the whole time he got just a single permission to visit home, despite the fact he had a wife and a small son waiting there for him. For five years he worked as a truck driver in ČSAD and then as a repairman in the local spa. Following the divorce with his wife in 1971 he moved to Prague, where he worked as a driver and a repairman at the Philosophical Institute; then until retirement he worked as a caretaker and a repairman in the Economic Institute of the Czechoslovak Science Academy. Then he returned to o Slatinice, where he lived in 2018.