I’ll awaken that sense of ownership in them
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František Nestával was born on 7 August 1950 into a farming family in the small village of Sviny. The farm belonged to his family for more than 300 years. In the 1950s, they had to give the property to a cooperative farm (JZD). His parents and František had to move away and found a a flat in nearby Veselí nad Lužnicí. The grandparents were allowed to continue living on the farm, in a small room converted from part of the stable, while the rest was falling apart. In the relaxed 1960s, the witness was able to study at secondary technical school, but his sister was not allowed to go to grammar school during the normalisation period. Even after his marriage in 1975, he was not allowed to move into the abandoned part of the farm. He finished his degree in civil engineering and worked as an investment engineer. In the 1990s, he worked in the nearby town of Veselí nad Lužnicí as a deputy mayor and mayor, and he initiated the establishment of a home for the elderly and a reception centre. He and his wife Marcela raised four sons and he is the grandfather of twenty grandchildren. After the restitution, the farm had collapsed ceilings, crumbling walls and a municipal dump in the yard. František Nestával started renovations in 2007. At the time of recording, in 2025, two sons and their families were living on the farm and the reconstruction was still going on.
