Jan Kolaja

* 1937

  • "How there was a front in '45. About fifty metres opposite us, there was a farm and there were bulls. And when the Russian planes were flying from the Slovak side, they were supposed to bomb as far as Korytná village, behind the hills. There were Germans there and they [Russians] were supposed to bomb the Volenov farm as the second hamlet from the border. But the pilot counted Květná where is a glass factory [as the first], and Strání as the second village and bombed the farm where the bulls were. And that was terrible. The bulls broke off and were running around the village. They caught perhaps two, but the Russians shot the others. And as it exploded, at all our houses, as we lived close by, the windows were smashed, also the gate where the passage to the farm was. There had been two huge willows there - and they were both torn down."

  • "We killed our calf, and someone told on us for slaughtering it illegally. Anyway, there were five of us [hungry persons]. Someone reported it to police and my father was supposed to go Hradiště to prison for fifteen days. So that he didn´t need to go to prison, my mother went instead of him. For slaughtering a calf without permission."

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    Uherské Hradiště, 01.12.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 02:17:46
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Katyusha rockets were flying all around

Jan Kolaja
Jan Kolaja
photo: Post Bellum

As stated in his identity card, Jan Kolaja was born on 16 September 1937. In fact, he was born two days earlier and the date was wrongly registered by the parish priest in his native village of Strání. In April 1945, as a seven-year-old boy, he was hiding in a bunker in the garden with his parents and siblings for several weeks while artillery shells were exploding all around. It was because the liberation fights at the village of Strání in the valley of the White Carpathians lasted a fortnight and claimed many lives. Under the communist regime, during the collectivization, his parents resisted for a long time the pressure to join a cooperative farm and farmed privately until 1960, when his father died. Jan Kolaja trained as a machinery and other equipment repairman. He then worked as a vehicle technician for the regional forestry administration and then went on to a transport company, where he remained for forty years until his retirement. In 1963 he married Maria Batůšková, with whom he raised their children Antonín and Jana. His faith in God accompanied him throughout his life. Even as a young boy, he served as an acolyte in the church in Strání and whole his life he tried to live in accordance with Christian principles. Despite pressure at work, he never joined the Communist Party and after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops, he refused to sign the approval of occupation. In 1985 he participated in the national pilgrimage to Velehrad, which turned into one of the largest anti-communist demonstrations. In November 1989, he participated in the canonization of Agnes of Bohemia in Rome. At the time of filming in 2021, he was living in Uherské Hradiště.