He couldn’t imagine leaving Bígr, but the closure of the mines decided
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Josef Pelnař was born on 15 November 1973 in a peasant family in the Czech village of Bígr in Romania. His father worked in the mines during the week and his mother looked after the upbringing of the children and took care of the farm, where Josef Pelnař and his younger brother had to help out. He completed four grades of school in Bígr, from the fifth to the eighth grade he continued at the Romanian school in Berzasca and later in the industrial town of Reșița. In the latter, he also experienced the social changes associated with the fall of the communist regime in Romania. From 1990 he learned the carpentry trade in the Cozla coal mine, where he later started working as a miner for financial reasons. After the closure of the Cozla mines, he went to work in the mines of Ujbányi (Eibentál), but after a tragic accident in 2006, mining in those mines was also stopped. In the summer of 2008, together with his wife and children, they moved permanently to the Czech Republic, where they still live. He keeps coming to Bígr to visit his parents.