Mgr. Karel Mráz

“The currency reform affected us in that shortly before its announcement in June, my mother had collected my deceased stepfather Dobner’s life insurance, which came to ten thousand crowns. That was quite a lot of money at the time. He must have started paying into his life insurance policy first and then we must have taken over. He passed away on April 8, 1953, and then we got the money, but then the currency reform followed in June. You were able to exchange about five hundred crowns at a decent rate, I believe. And for whatever else you had on top of that, the exchange rate was one to fifty. So, in fact the currency lost its value. So, my mother suffered this unfortunate financial blow.”

“There were quite a few of these so-called ,damaged teachers’. And they all ended up at this school in Sokolov, as that was a school for adults, and so the unwholesome teachers wouldn’t be corrupting the youth. There were about five of us ‘damaged ones’. There were three types of damage: expelled, dismissed from the Party, and other. Whoever was expelled had no chance, they were fired almost automatically. I was a non-party member of course. The thing was dragging on and no one knew whether they were going to start sacking people or not. We were under a lot of pressure.”

“I remember the war. They were always at war. Wouldn’t stop shooting at each other… I felt they kind of enjoyed it. We came into contact with the war as early as 1940. That was– They mostly fought amongst themselves. It was Serbs against Croats, Orthodox Christians against Catholics… Already in Čapljina, we saw them fighting in the streets, one group against another, but I mean one group of Yugoslavs against another group of Yugoslavs. And then the Germans burst in, and the constant bickering stopped. Naturally it did, didn’t it. For a short while there was no fighting, but then, when we had already settled in Dubrovnik, Italy occupied Dalmatia. Hitler’s ally Mussolini took over the whole Dalmatian coast. And they were a glorious sight to look at, these Italian carabiniers, walking around with their rifles and sporting their wide-brimmed hats. Later, when they fought with the Germans… the Germans fired three times and the Croats instantly broke down and so Dalmatia fell under Berlin’s control. Luckily, when freedom fighters fought over Yugoslavia, they struck some deal with the Germans and Dubrovnik was left alone as a free city. So, there was a lot fighting everywhere around us, but the fortifications, the historical town, remained intact.”