I just grew up without my daddy
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Zikmund Schwarzkopf was born on 14 March 1950 into a family that was closely connected with a tannery and shoe factory in the Sušice region. His grandfather owned a local tannery and his father was the son of the owner. After February 1948, however, the family was hit by communist repression: his father was drafted to the PTP (Technical auxiliary battalions) as “unreliable” and Zikmund spent a significant part of his childhood without him. The mother was unable to find work for a long time, the family struggled with a lack of money, and their apartment was regularly visited by members of the regime, who suspected the family of hiding “capital” and assets from the factory. Despite the difficult conditions, he managed to graduate from the Secondary Industrial School of Construction in Pilsen, majoring in ceramics and refractories. After graduation, he joined the Chlumčany ceramic factory, where he worked, among other things, in the labour economics department. In 1991 he founded his own company. In the interview, he often returns to the family tradition of honest business, to his grandfather’s tannery with hundreds of employees and to the fact that an entrepreneur should take responsibility for the people who work for him.
