Josef Tvrzník

"With children, who we normally went to during the first republic… so we knew each other with the German boys. We were flying kites together, went up to Jungen-Spielplatz (todays Žižkův vrch in Jablonec nad Nisou – editor`s note). We lived normally together. I could not speak German, so I used Czech and they understood. We just did. But then the German army marched in and they had to join Hitlerjugend. And they properly manipulated them in Hitlerjugend. At that moment I became their worst enemy. And where we met each other, I was beaten, spat on and kicked around. They wore small knives and got German belts. It was amazing how they equipped them. They also told them, it will be so and so and Hitler wants it that way and it had to be like that. Not all of them agreed and it was not easy. They taught them hate us. Those ideas of theirs – ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer."

"Then I came out of the technical college and Harus began to act. He was a member of the parliament, who claimed we will not do any philistine trincets, which is a useless, but build a heavy industry. And in 1949 they were liquidating bijou factory in Jablonec. But those were billions of losses done in the city. The Germans built such amazing base for industry with precision, accuracy and perfection and we were just binning it. Lifetime work was being putted into scrap! In 1952 (the communists – editor` s note) were building technical school. It was so well equipped, that even though I worked there for for 45 years, I worked on it and knew what it was supposed to look like, we never got back to the 1945 level. Any material technique, in all aspects (after war – editor` s note) was there in the technical school. And we cancelled it all in 1952. Imagine, that after war we did something like that! You know, whoever from those youngsters didn` t experience it, could not imagine it at all! It was crazy! In 1960 we figured that we could produce (bijou – editor` s note) for the Soviet Union. So we created Jablonex, export company. We built it near the dam. Behind it we built bijou factory (Jablonecka bijou – editor` s note) and there we were making from the leftovers we collected the same bijou, although it was a matter of fashion. We worked with the old machines… with old pressing machines and only changing it slightly from time to time."