Lubomír Otisk

* 1926

Sokol, Witnesses of local events connected to WWII, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
1. 9. 1939 - The outbreak of the WW2, 1944 - 1945 - The liberation of Czechoslovakia, 2. 10. 1938 - Poland's annexation of Teschen area
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    Cruel treatment of Soviet POW by the Germans

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    duration: 00:49
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    “I remember one accident. The power plant was being built just by the facility for washing of coal. Wagons, arriving for the coal, had to be clean. Once, probably after the potato harvest, they were not cleaned properly. When our workers swept the wagons, they swept away a few potatoes. The Russian soldiers immediately ignored all guards and went after the potatoes. And they beat them with their riffle butts until they bled. About ten of them were carried away, perhaps dead.”

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    The expulsion of Czechs after the Polish occupation of the Těšín region

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    duration: 00:53
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    “About a half of the Mexico colony left, not with a month notice. They were give a not, the so-called pass without powrot [return] and they had to move out in 24 hours. My godmother, Anastazie Widerová, received the note on December 23. She and her husband had their Christmas tree decorated already. They took a few suitcases and went to Radvanice. It was terrible. We roamed the empty flats. I stole a Sokol scarf from one of them. I kept it a long time. It was a trauma. I already saw my childhood departing and I sensed it was getting serious.”

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    Nationality checks by German authorities

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    duration: 00:41
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    “It was at school, we were invited by groups and each of us was then checked individually. I remember that the man who led me there shouted at me in German what nationality I was. My father had taught me in advance that I was to say Czech. And then I remember they checked me like in a recruitment. I had to undress to my underwear, they looked into my eyes, hair, asked me, how much German I knew.”

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    Ostrava, 23.05.2018

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    duration: 03:31:35
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The Polish occupation put an end to my happy times

Lubomír Otisk / May 2018
Lubomír Otisk / May 2018
photo: ED

Lubomír Otisk was born on February 12, 1926, into an old mining colony Mexico in Doubrava, Karviná region. His childhood was happy and worry-free until eleven when his mother died. In 1938-1939 he experienced the Polish occupation of the eastern part of the Těšín region and the expulsion of Czechs from Doubrava. He was spared as his father, the only blaster of the local mine, was indispensable. However, he had to leave his grammar school which was transformed into a Polish-language school. In March 1939, the Polish occupation was replaced by the occupation by the Nazi Germany and Doubrava became a part of the German Reich. In order to avoid going to a German school, he commuted to a school in Radvanice near Ostrava. Fearing forced labour in Germany, he joined, as a fifteen-year-old the Reich company Trampler, which was building the Barbora power plant in Karviná. He witnessed the cruel treatment of the Polish Jews and prisoners of war, who were assigned to slave labour there. After the liberation, he worked in the mines first as a clerk, then as a labourer and eventually as a member of the marketing department. His lifetime hobbies include tennis, painting and cacti growing.

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