František Hromek

* 1932

  • "I call it puppets. Those families covered up within. Something was spoken about in the family at dinner or lunch in the evening, and then Dad said, 'But kids, not that you talk about it out there, none of what we say in here!' And the generation grew, whether we admit it or not, where we had something else in mind and something else in our mouths, and that damaged those interpersonal relationships so much that we would still confront and struggle with it."

  • "When I was appointed head of the ironworks in Nová Huť, the condition was that I would become a member of the party. I could apologize for this, or I do not have to, but my father was an official of social democracy and refused to enter the communist-socialist merger. So, he told me: 'Look, if that's one necessary condition, then when you get in there, try to stay a decent person.' So I can apologize for my entry, but I can say that I have never hurt anyone, on the contrary, we have formed a core of friends who were also in the party, and when it escalated after the year 1968 following the troops arrival, my colleagues inclined to the side that was against the entry of those troops."

  • "In 1948, I was 16. It was the last All-Sokol gathering. I trained there as an elder teenager. I took part in athletics competitions. I was third there. I was rewarded, but I already told you how I met with that uncle from Argentina, so we had a ceremonial march, teenage boys and girl. There was a tribunal, where the comrades Gottwald and Zápotocký sat. So, we were marching and looked on the left from the tribunal. And we chanted along: ´Without Beneš and Masaryk, there is no Republic!´ Well, it was a big fuss. After the meeting, they closed it all including the management, Hřebík et al., and even the Sokol was closed down."

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    Ostrava, 18.05.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 02:07:33
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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Now there is a grown-up generation thinking something else and saying otherwise. That is what we will struggle with for a long time.

František Hromek was born on February 11, 1932 in Moravská Nová Ves. From an early age, he was actively involved in folk music. Shortly after the war, he was part of the children’s delegation, which was received in the Vladislav Hall by the president, Edvard Beneš. In 1948 he took part in the last All-Sokol Rally. He recalls the forced collectivization in the countryside and the destruction of the peasant state. After graduating from the grammar school in Břeclav, the witness went to study at the University of Mining in Ostrava. There, together with other students, he founded the Song and Dance Ensemble of the University of Mining, with which he performed dozens of concerts throughout the region. The ensemble later became the well-known dulcimer music ensemble Technik. In 1960, František Hromek joined the Communist Party. He worked in Vítkovice Ironworks and in 1962 he became the head of the New Steelworks of Vítkovice Ironworks. In 1968, he expressed his opposition to the occupation. He was removed from the leadership position and a year later expelled from the party. He remained working in the ironworks until the Velvet Revolution in the research department. After the revolution, he became the general director of the ironworks for several years. Even in 2021 he took an active part in public affairs.