Ing. Josef Kubeš

* 1937

  • “Throughout the summer of 1945 first the captives and then hundreds of people selected for expulsion were being assembled in the Lomnice nad Popelkou football pitch. It was enclosed by a wooden plank fence and some punks were entertaining themselves by throwing stones over the fence, almost always hitting someone. I saw this with my own eyes.”

  • “I have one significant memory of the times of occupation. We used to live in a secluded place and sometime around 1943 a Russian captive arrived at night. He stood by our house just as my dad was heading to the barn. The Russian guy grabbed his shoulder, began talking to him in Russian and was very surprised by hearing a reply in Russian. It was because my dad was held captive by in Russia since 1915.”

  • “Once I read in the papers that a certain admiral was appointed to a high-rank position in the NATO. I responded: ‘Oh, my! I knew his daughter!’ A long time before that I used to date her. And imagine that someone took the trouble to announce it to the authorities and I was then under investigation by the secret police. I told the officers that I knew little about the girl and that we only used to play tennis together. They assigned me the task of following this girl which I hadn’t promised. The investigation ended up there. However, in the file they had on me, there was a statement saying that I used to have friendly relations with an undesirable individual.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 13.10.2015

    (audio)
    duration: 01:50:19
    media recorded in project Memory of Nations Sites
  • 2

    V Praze, 10.06.2020

    (audio)
    duration: 01:00:06
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

An engineer against my will, a pilot against my parents’

Josef Kubeš (2015)
Josef Kubeš (2015)

Josef Kubeš was born on 2 June 1937. He grew up in a secluded settlement Cikánka near Lomnice nad Popelkou. During his grammar school studies in Semily he obtained a pilot license. Because of his passion for flying and also for financial reasons he then enrolled at the Faculty of Aeronautics of the Military Technical Academy in Brno. As a young graduate he started working in Prague’s Motorlet factory. He stayed there for thirty-seven years before retiring in 1997. After the Velvet Revolution he accepted his colleagues’ offer and became head of development. As a contractor he aided Motorlet in obtaining certification for its H-80 motor and for seven years collaborated with Aero Vodochody.