“We lived there with the Žákovský family who had been evicted; they had a son who was about fifteen years old and worked as a horse driver, and a daughter who worked as a kitchen assistant. We arrived there one day and we found Mrs. Žákovská in tears. She told us: ‘Our son Staník has to marry!’ I replied: ‘Why, this is something to be merry about, isn’t it?’ ‘Well, but he is marrying the daughter of the highest-ranking communist around...’ So during those forty years there was mingling and mixing of people.”
“Mother stayed there until the time when my father returned from the prison. As a kulak he was deprived of his civilian rights for ten years... they evicted him from the house, imprisoned him, and then, when he was out of prison, they forbade him to enter the village for the following ten years. His sister lived in Smolnice and he went to see her one evening. He needed permission for that, if he wanted to go there, he had to request a particular day and time for the visit. And another time a policeman escorted him out of the village because father had exceeded the time, and they threatened him that should that ever happen again they would imprison him again.”
“In the PTP they used us for everything that civilian workers did not want to do... we were building airports, when they needed workers for coal mines, one group of us went there, and another group worked on airports... we were at their disposal and they could send us wherever they wanted – here or there... we need two hundred people here, and we need two hundred people over there, and three hundred people over there, and we were thus a kind of a mobile unit.”
Václav Žatecký was born December 4, 1928 in Smolnice near Louny. His parents Adolf and Marie Žatecký farmed on their large family estate. Their daughter Marie was born in 1931 and Václav’s younger brother Adolf in 1935. In 1947 Václav completed his study at the agricultural school in Roudnice nad Labem and he began working at the family farm. At the same time he began seeing Marie, who later became his wife. As a son of a kulak, he was drafted to the army and assigned to service in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP) in 1950). In 1952 the family farm was appropriated by the state and Václav’s father was imprisoned; he was released four years later in 1956. Václav returned home at the end of 1953 after thirty-nine months, which he spent in the work units mainly on construction of Czech airports (Čáslav). When he came home, he was greeted not only by his wife Marie, but also his two-year old son Václav. After his return from the army Václav began working at the local state farm in Litoměřice as a zootechnician, but after somebody informed upon him, he was demoted to the position of a tractor driver. He eventually worked at the farm as a driver, as an agronomist and as a supply manager. His wife, who was a member of the Communist Party, worked for the military administration office in Terezín and later for the town administration office. Václav Žatecký retired in 1989 and he lives with his wife Marie in Terezín. Václav Žatecký died in 2019.
