Josef Davídek

* 1935

  • "Then, at the end of the war, there were Germans. And they, I remember, it was June, July, it was hot. And the transport of the Germans went to Klatovy, to Germany. They managed to walk a part of the way. And when they passed through the village, some had civilian clothes and some wore military uniforms. When the soldier came to someone, he wanted them to give him pants and a coat so that he would not look like a soldier, so that he would not be prosecuted. The transport went through Lipnice and was led by people from Lipnice, I will not name them. And in the back of that transport were about five Germans, they had a glass of cucumbers and showed that they wanted to drink. And our butcher, from Lipnice, took his wand and struck them over their hands. And they came to Poříčí and there they were... if they shot them... they were buried there at the cemetery."

  • "And I always told him that first it's important to know that a person is Czech, that he's from a village, and then only later, who's a party member, or not. You always need to know, if the person is Czech and comes from Lipnice, which is a village.´There are whatever… during the war there were people coming to our house and mother used to give them milk. The postman brought a bottle and my mother always poured milk in it. And imagine that he then came to us in the 1950s. I won't name him by name... ten postmen and another, from Zhůř, and they've checked on us. And women, when it was time to process the grains, and when it were bad, so did the dads go to the shredder. And they found it there. That's why my dad was supposed to be fined and he sentenced to custody. And they wanted a collective farm. Otherwise they evicted us. The collective farm was established and it was done. Eventually Gottwald died and there was an amnesty, so it did not have to. Otherwise it would have turned out badly for us."

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    Plzeň, 17.06.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:11:36
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
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Under the threat of eviction, everyone eventually entered the agricultural cooperative

Davídek Josef (en)
Davídek Josef (en)
photo: natáčení PN

Josef Davídek was born on April 14, 1935 in the village of Lipnice near Spálené Poříčí into the family of a local farmer. From an early age, he had to help his parents work on the farm. He started going to school in Spálené Poříčí at the beginning of the Second World War, but he mainly remembers the events from the end of the war. The American Army and a little later the Red Army arrived in Lipnice, which was located near the demarcation line. He recalls air raids by dredgers and passing groups of captured German soldiers. Shortly after the war, a Wehrmacht soldier worked on their farm, whom his father brought to help from Pilsen. In the 1950s, the family was labeled as kulaks because it owned more than fifteen hectares of land. The father was forced to deliver supplies and despite the tireless efforts of the whole family, they were unable to meet the supplies. He was convicted and went to prison. In 1953, however, then-President Klement Gottwald died and his father was pardoned under a declared amnesty. Under the threats of eviction and due to the impossibility of fulfilling supplies, everyone, including the witness’s father and his children, finally joined the unified agricultural cooperative in Lipnice. Josef Davídek stayed there until his retirement and worked first as a tractor driver and later as a mechanic. The farm was returned to them in restitution in 1990. He lives with his wife in Lipnice on his native farm.