Jaroslav Hlubůček

* 1929

  • "Around 1972, they came to me that I was the plant director, but since I was a non-communist, they made it a department only, but that the department director had to be a communist anyway. I said, 'No, you can transfer me, I won't be [a communist] anyway.''Then at least you have to go to university.' I said, 'Well, you didn't allow me to go to university precisely because I'm not a communist.' - 'No, we'll let you do it.' So I went to the Technical University in Liberec, and after two terms they came to me and told me that I had to join the Communist Party, that there was no other way. I said, 'I'm sorry, in that case I'm dropping school, I can't go on doing it at that cost, I don't have the right character.' They also wanted to remove me from the cooperation position and this was prevented by the CEO of the concern - not Mr Kopal, but another one."- "What was his name?"- "I think it was Padrta, the former deputy director of Preciosa." - "Do you know his first name?" - "Mirek Padrta. And he said, even though he's not a party member [meaning the witness], he doesn't harm the industry, he helps the industry, so he will stay here. So it was this way until 1989."

  • "Right in May 1945, we formed the Revolutionary Guards in Železný Brod, as everywhere else, and I, as a young man, was included in the group that was to go to liberate Jablonec. That was already on May 8." - "You were 16 years old?" - "I was 16. So we arrived in Jablonec with one stop that scared us a little bit, quite a lot. When we were going by bus, two German planes started attacking us at Bratříkov, the bus, and we jumped out near the Sokol gym and we were hiding in the woods. Nobody was hurt. The planes dropped a couple of small bombs, but fortunately away from us and away from the Sokol building, which was full of ammunition. That was fortunate, so the first arrival in Jablonec was full of fear and apprehension of what was in store for us. We were young and didn't want to leave life yet. But the next day the Soviet army arrived in Jablonec. We stayed there until the end of May as a Czech guard until the Czech soldiers arrived. I was there for three weeks." - "So you experienced looting?" - "I experienced the looting. It was terrible. We were supposed to prevent it. At first it was by Russian soldiers and then as our [soldiers] were coming in... it couldn't be prevented. Those were terrible days."

  • “One such tragicomic incident happened at the funeral of one of my friends… his name was Jirka Malý, a construction technician. He went on a motorcycle to see his fiancée in Chomutov and killed himself on his way. Of course, our whole unit had to attend the funeral. In addition to the commander´s speech, a civilian, the chairman of the trade union movement, finally said: 'Thank you, mate, for the work you have done, live long and well... ' We all got stiff, but when there was a chance, we said to each other: ´Well, we are working among such folks.'”

  • “There it was upsetting me that we were made idiots by people with perhaps only basic school education. That was a disaster. But on the other hand, we made beautiful friendships there, because there were many priests, a lot of people from the foreign army in England, so we had a chance to talk, have fun and somehow the military service was running fast, even though it was hard, we were still able to have a good time.”

  • Just before they came to nationalize, my dad´s friend called from the savings bank to advise him not to keep secret any of his claims from abroad or the details of his financial situation here... 'They already have got information about it, so be open in that regard in order to avoid further damage, or otherwise they´ll lock you up immediately.'”

  • "And when the Gestapo arrested Daddy in 1944 and took him to Pečkárna [Petschek Palace in Prague], Daddy came back after about three weeks, saying that he was suddenly summoned to see a doctor there. The doctor pronounced him being sick, and he released. The doctor told him to thank his business friends from Jablonec. To this day we do not know who they were who saved my father from the concentration camp and helped him return from Pečkárna."

  • "I was appointed to forced labour in Železný Brod - we were building roadblocks, sorting uniforms from the front... and [doing] quite disgusting things - because the uniforms from the front hadn´t been cleaned, we were sorting them for cleaning. So there were bloody remains of fingers in the gloves... That wasn´t very appropriate for my age."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Liberec, 25.09.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:22:31
  • 2

    Liberec, 09.05.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 02:49:27
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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His father’s glass factory was taken away by the Czechoslovak Communist Party, his son had to drudge in a quarry with jaundice

Jaroslav Hlubůček as a member of the Revolutionary Guards in 1945
Jaroslav Hlubůček as a member of the Revolutionary Guards in 1945
photo: Witness´s archive

Jaroslav Hlubůček was born on 10 February 1929 in Železný Brod as the third of four children. His family was in glass and fashion jewellery business, which was experiencing great growth in the region. He was involved in the production from a young age and apart from that he also attended Sokol. In 1936, he welcomed Edvard Beneš in Železný Brod. During the Second World War he was appointed to forced labour and did not finish his grammar school studies. His father helped partisans and was later arrested by the Gestapo, but he got off thanks to good relations with Jablonec merchants. At the end of the war Jaroslav Hlubůček, as a member of the Revolutionary Guards, experienced the liberation and also looting in Jablonec. In 1948, the communists nationalized the family business and removed his parents from management positions. He graduated from a business academy, but due to the poor cadre profile, instead of going to university he joined the Auxiliary Engineering Corps (PTP). During his military service he got married. He and his wife Dana raised two daughters. When he was able to leave for civilian life, he worked first as a manager of the Ještěd department store, then he returned to the family business as a dispatcher. Gradually, thanks to his skills, he worked his way up to management positions, but during the normalisation period he was repeatedly asked to join the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He always refused it, but remained in a managerial position anyway. After 1989 he founded his own company for the production of soft-soldered fashion jewellery in Jablonec. Twenty years later, after the collapse of the export company Jablonex, he contributed to preservation of the tradition of glass and jewellery making in Jablonec. He subsequently served as chairman of the Association of Glass and Costume Jewellery Manufacturers. His wife succumbed to cancer in 2010. Jaroslav Hlubůček remarried seven years later. In 2022 he was living in Jablonec nad Nisou.