"The Chairman of the National Committee had requirements that were impossible to fulfill, for example: that hen will lay five eggs a day. So my father went to the Chairman of the National Committee and told him: 'Look, I cannot meet these requirements because they are too high.' When they were recruiting for the cooperatives and members of the Communist Party would make their rounds, it happened to be this exact same Chairman who came to see my father, who told them: 'I won't join the cooperative, even if I have to crawl!' Then, when my father went to the National Committee, the Chairman reminded him: 'Mr. Vycpálek, you shouldn’t have come here, even if you have to crawl later. So crawl!' And that was that. They didn’t reduce anything for my father."
"First I would train for the youth team, and then I had to join the adult team. But my friend Mirek Sejkov and I didn’t bother to do that. There was a parade through Prague – there were so many people and some slogans were being shouted: 'Long live Beneš!' and others. Mirek Sejkov and I climbed up a lamppost next to the National Theater and shouted slogans from there. There were already some communists taking part in the parade and they were trying to reach us. But other people blocked their way and created this empty space for us under the lamppost. We climbed down and merged into the crowd and they never found us. But the Sokol movement found out that we had chanted anti-communist slogans, and so they expelled us.”
"And when my compulsory military service was over, this first lieutenant told me: 'Stay here, join the army. If you go home, they will force you to join those cooperatives!' I said that that wasn’t the case, that we had a farm and that my parents were there and that I had to go home. And he kept saying: 'You're going to regret it.' And yes I did! I came home and they had already founded a cooperative there, in 1953 I think. They took away our entire farm, the horses, they took everything away from us. They crushed us and that was that. Four horses were sent to Belgium for meat. There was nothing to eat here and everything was being exported, in exchange for foreign currencies."
"Then the Germans somehow all met up here and drove off, when they saw the flags, they turned towards Stříbrná Skalice. There were about two cars and they made a U-turn at the brickyard. Venca Novák lived on the edge of town, he was single and ran this very small farm. He used to keep a goose at the neighbours’ house, and in order for it to have goslings, he would lead it next door to a neighbour who had a gander. And as he was chasing the goose along, the Germans in their cars drove by. He was a bit eccentric and would always carry a cigarette holder around with him. He started looking through his pockets as the Germans saw him and bang, they shot him right there in his yard. He is buried in the cemetery here. They thought he was looking for a gun or something, because of the way he was looking through his pockets, but he was just looking for his cigarette holder. He was so eccentric to use that cigarette holder."
Václav Vycpálek was born on January 26, 1927 in the village of Ondřejov, in the Prague-East district. He grew up in a farming family that cultivated 12 hectares of land. From the age of six he attended the elementary school in Ondřejov, became a member of the Sokol movement and from 1938 onwards he continued his studies at the secondary school in Stříbrná Skalice. His uncle František Micka worked as a blacksmith at the presidential residence in Lány, where young Václav met President Masaryk. As a child, in 1938, he took part in the 10th Sokol Festival on Letná, and during the German occupation he was forced to join the Kuratorium (the Board of Trustees for the Education of Youth). After World War II, he would commute to the Agricultural School in Benešov. In 1948, he participated at the XI. Sokol Festival and took part in the parade through Prague that followed. He was then expelled from his Sokol club for chanting anti-communist slogans. After Václav returned from his compulsory military service (1951), his family faced persecution because of the collectivization of agricultural. Václav struggled to find a job and ended up working as an agronomist in the Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD) in Ondřejov. In 1959, he got married and started his own family. As a member of the local community theater group, he played in a number of theater performances. He was also involved in the local football team, both as a player and as the club leader. In January 2023, he celebrated his 96th birthday and at the time of filming, in May 2023, he lived in Ondřejov. Václav Vycpálek died on November 2023.
A group photo of footballers from Ondřejov on the occasion of a friendly match between Ondřejov and an unnamed Austrian team, Václav Vycpálek in the top row wearing a white shirt and tie, 1970
A group photo of footballers from Ondřejov on the occasion of a friendly match between Ondřejov and an unnamed Austrian team, Václav Vycpálek in the top row wearing a white shirt and tie, 1970
