Jan Simandl

* 1930

  • „ I've be going until the year 1951, when an announcement to go to military service arrived. I was meant to start on October 1, 1951 in Libava, where there were many soldiers then. I had no idea, where I am going... I only learnt there about auxiliary tank battalions, about me being unreliable and serving without guns at the PTPs, as the working folks apparently did not trust us as we could turn our guns against them. And so we got no guns and did our fortnight training ordinal training at the training center; I was saved by my glasses. They put me into heavy constructions. Fourteen days later they put us into a truck and took us to Přerov, beyond Bochoř.“

  • „They locked them up both, that bloke and the young one, they put them in front of a public trial in Moravské Budějovice and sentenced them. The bloke got two years and the young one just one year, which was not too bad. But a part of the sentence was confiscation of their property to the state. And a ban of staying in Moravské Budějovice region for ten years and fifteen years to stay in the village… those were the properties they inherited from their parents, it was all confiscated and they even chased them out of it, it was impossible to figure out, how is that possible. But that was simply the reality... they moved the family to Liberec and they had to feed farm animals and when the guys served their punishment, they followed them and worked there too.“

  • „I thought that´s all right, they are already giving away leaving reports and I will go in the afternoon, so I ran to the office with a travel fever. In front of the office there was a black tatraplan, that was the best car then... I announced myself in an army manner to my commander and there was a civil dressed guy too asking me: ‚Are you who and who, born then and there...?‘ And I said: ‚Yes.‘ He turned around holding a gun pointing at me and said: ‚Put your hands up, you are arrested.‘ Believe me or not, I just began to laugh... I simply did not trust it was really true. (...) Then they let me get undressed naked, took everything away from me, let me dress up again and said: ‚Now you will sit in the back of the car, you cannot make a single step out of the way, nor talk to anyone, otherwise I shall use the gun.‘“

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    Knihovna Dačice, 20.04.2015

    (audio)
    duration: 01:08:35
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Loosing freedom? What more is there to lose?

Contemporary photo
Contemporary photo

Jan Simandl was born on 19 November 1930 in Brno. His father had a farm in Jiratice near Jemnice. The witness learnt well, but as he was the oldest son so he was expected to take over the farming. Therefore between 1947 and 1949 he attended the winter agricultural school. After the communistic coop the farmers were forced to fulfil forced to pay charges, which did not correspond to their true potential, and were persuaded to join the cooperatives. The family lost its property and hunting arms. In 1949 Jan Simandl was taken to serve in the army and began with the Auxiliary Technical Battalions, where he worked in construction. Among other things he was there with many priests; in a show trial he was sentenced to two years in prison to serve with one of them. After release he got married and moved to Ostojkovice with his wife, where he lives until today.