“We knew him even before that at the vocational school. He wasn’t tall but whenever he walked around the apprentices would say: ‘Douša’s coming.’ He had this sort of eyebrows and was a real man. He had respect already by the time we did handcraft; he was someone. All of our chiefs were personalities. The factory would assign educated, smart people with good attitude towards the youth there. They themselves were still young. Within three days, Douša explained it all to us. Then we went to have our first three days of school in Hloubětín.“
“Independent work, experience from work in a factory, experience with people… In the factory, whenever someone did some minor offence, the factory would vouch for them as long as they were decent people and not some murderers. The factory actually taught me everything. Walter factory had given me the most for my future life. I think that a lot of factories used to have similar ways of upbringing young people; a complex education.”
„Apart from being so versatile, the factory was proud of its tradition. In the mirror maze at Petřín hill, there used to be much better mirrors around which were exhibited all the Walter engines, both from pre-war and post-war times. The engines were lying on such round pedestals. Unfortunatelly, this collection broke apart and today is scattered among various museums – military, technical... In fact, this exhibition which could have been easily transported, disappeared, as did the mirror hall. But the tradition did not.“
Miloš Zárybnický was born on 12 May 1936 in Prague. He grew up in Lochkov, at that time a distinct village, today a part of Prague. After finishing elementary school in 1951 he did vocational training in the Motorlet (former Walter Motors) factory in Prague’s Jinonice quarter. He passed the exam to become an aircraft mechanic and then continued with his studies at the high school of aircraft engineering in Hloubětín, graduating in 1957. He then went on to do his military service and since 1959 worked in the Motorlet factory as mechanical engineer. In 1962 he won an open competition to become the director of the Gold Mining Museum located in Jílové near Prague. While working, he also managed to graduate in philosophy and psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prague. He left the museum in 1972 and since 1973 up until pension worked in the National Technical Museum in the mining department. He specializes in mining history and is the director and of Silesian-Moravian-Bohemian Mining Association. As a long-term museum employee he still collaborates with museums across the Czech Republic and in Poland and works on the popularization of mining. He lives in Prague-Lochkov.
