“We were driving steam engines and express trains which were going from Berlin via Prague to Budapest. It was always the route Berlin – Prague – Vienna. There was a Red Star symbol attached to every locomotive. When we arrived to the border with Hungary, the border guards did not want to let us into the country because we had the Red Star. I thus ordered it to be taken down. It was big trouble, because they were later conducting assessments who was loyal to the Party and who was not. This was my transgression that I have done during that period. It was no heroism or anything like that. I was earning my living by professional work, and not by politics. But you couldn’t avoid it.”
“Well, I come from the Ostrava region, my dad worked for the railways there, he was a steam engine driver, and we lived there. As boys we lived there until 1938 when the region was taken over by Poland; the Poles occupied us. Unfortunately I have to say that we have not been taken over by the Germans, but by the Polish. It was the Těšín region, and the Poles took over Těšín all the way up to the Ostravice River. They always used to say ‘Ostravica – Granica (borderline).’ Unfortunately it was like this, and it happened at the time when I was already able to perceive it, because I was eighteen at that time. I can say that this was for the first time in my life when I experienced disappointment, so to speak, because I have always believed what they had told us in school: that the Slavic people always stick together and so on, but then we were taken over by the Poles. It is true that some months later it has been all taken over by the Germans, anyway.”
“Then I received a draft notice for Arbeitzwang, as it was called, forced labour in Germany. They wanted to send me to… where the Krupp factories were, but I didn’t want to go there, and eventually I went to Enzersfeld, which is a little town between Vienna and Wiener Neustadt. It was called Enzersfeld Metal erkep – a factory which produced aircraft parts and there was also an ammunition factory which produced hand grenades. I began working there in 1941 and I was there until 1944, when in spring… Well, in spring 1944 I escaped from Germany and I stayed at home. What a life it was for me as a young man: I wasn’t doing anything and my parents were feeding me. I liked it quite a lot. But then they began conducting searches and checks, and they were looking for escapees. Now you almost don’t realize what you have done. I was hiding many times – my uncle was the director of an electricity administration company in the villages, and he had access keys from a transformer station. He had a copy of the key done for me. When a check was announced, I would go and hide in the transformer station.”
Josef Krátký comes from the Ostrava region where he was born in 1920. His father worked for the railways. The region became occupied by Poland in 1938. The family moved to Tupesy which was the hometown of his father, and for some time they thus lived in Moravia. Josef Krátký is an electrician by profession, and he worked for the West Moravia Electric Works. Then he was drafted for zwangsarbeit - forced labour - to Germany. He worked for the company Enzesfelden MetalWerke which produced aircraft parts. He began working there in 1941 and stayed until 1944. In spring he escaped from Germany. He enjoyed his life at home - he didn’t work anywhere and his parents were taking care of him, but at the same time the authorities were searching for him. That was also when he met his wife for the first time. They married in June 1945. After the war Josef studied mechanical engineering at the university, specializing in railway transportation. The faculty which he attended was an elite institution which was designed for students who were favourably perceived by the political regime of the time. Its graduates were being offered management jobs. Josef followed the family tradition and began working for the railways as well. After graduation from the university he started working in Prague, where he stayed for the following twenty years. For ten years he worked at the Ministry of Transport as an executive manager. He was the head of the locomotive fleet and electrical systems administration. However, he was dismissed from his position in 1968 after he had ordered the removal of the Soviet Red Star symbol from locomotives which Hungarian border guards refused to allow into their country. Josef Krátký remained working at the ministry for ten more years, but no longer in any managerial position. After 1968 he transferred to the technical department, where he worked as a deputy. After retiring from the job he moved to Pilsen to his son’s.
