“We used to have a big farm in the Czech Highlands. My father died when I was sixteen, at a time when I dreamt of joining the air forces – I still have a badge of the Masaryk aircraft which I applied to at home. I’m ninety-four years old now but I still enjoy looking up when I see something flying above me. Back then, my mum told me: ‘No air force, there is your farm you have to take care of!’ So I did. At first I didn’t like it, I even wanted to run away to the West with two friends of mine during the war. When we reached the Polish borders, I told them: ‘Guys, I’m sorry! I would really love to go with you but my mum lives here and I can’t leave her.’ My conscience didn’t allow me. So I went back but they eventually reached England. Both joined the air force and both used to fly over the La Manche channel. One of them got shot down, he has a memorial in Humpolec. My mum died a few years after that and I was sent by the Germans to Austria for digging trenches as forced labor at the end of the war. That was horrendous. When people say they would like to be young again, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t like to go through my life again.”
“I used to have a neighbour who had a four leaf clover on the gable of his house. It used to be that kind of person who used to change coats constantly – the Germans came, he joined them, then there were Communists, he joined them right away too. After the coup in 1948 he stated going to the municipal office and he became a local agronomist. He had to assign rations to the people – how much they should deliver, what should be sown and hat not, how much to sell. Those who had a lower acreage didn’t get anything but those who owned bigger areas were assigned unreachable numbers. So that they could be fined and put behind bars. So they could get rid of the so called ‘kulaks’. And I was one of them. The hated.
Even though our family used to do so much for the local community during the war, and also before it. I remember that we used to come see a tailor who had three sons. Because we had up to eight kilos of butter weekly, my mum sold them some under very good conditions. And they felt so obliged! But when the Communists came, the sons got high position at the national committee, suddenly they were hard-core Communists. And I got ridiculous fines – fifty thousand, twenty thousand, eight thousand, I still have those pieces of paper at my place. I was young so I didn’t take it so much to heart but many many local farmers took their lives. Because no one had that much money.
So one day the sons of the tailor came to us and started writing up all we had. They came to take our property. I recall I had an old milk jug where I stored old motor oil. They put it on their list as well. I had to laugh. They took everything. I tried to pay back some of the debts – I went to Šumava for work, we gathered wood. But when I came back I found just three bare walls. The Communists used to found agricultural cooperatives and so they took all the livestock in there and remade it into a bureau. Then they all took it to a miller from the neighbouring village, as he owned twenty hectares more. I remember looking at the ruin, I had an idea of drawin a picture of it. I still have it by me. I put down on it: ‘Welcome to your native house.’ But I didn’t take it tragically, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you now if I did. I told myself that I couldn’t do anything about it: ‘What will be, will be, I will get by somehow.’ My father-in-law told me once: ‘At that time I used to sit in an office, didn’t have an idea that there was something going on.’ It all passed by him. He said: ‘What are you telling me, it’s just some made-up stories!’
For some made-up stories, for me it was my life. I reconstructed the house, it took several years, but they eventually took it away from me in 1953. I will tell you something I haven’t told anyone so far: At one point, I even had a plan with some of my friends that we would take the agronomist down. He used to take a motorcycle to the town so we were thinking about waiting for him. With a gun. Eventually I decided not to: ‘I didn’t give him the life, I shouldn’t take it from him.’ Today I’m happy that I decided so. But it’s interesting that his grand-daughter is the one who owns my former land these days, they bought it for some pennies. I still have a strip of land in the area – one hundred and eight metres of balk – so I go there from time to time. They are just reconstructing my native house. I once went there. The woman said: ‘What are you doing here?’ And I replied: ‘And what are you doing here?’”
Věra Mannaertsová, 23.7.2017
P.S.
The story of the time. It is a pity not to mention specific places and specific people. It was war armed against the defenseless. The Communists declared a class struggle. They stole, closed, tortured and murdered innocent people. If someone destroys innocent, I have the same right to liquidate them in the name of the higher moral principle. This was led by the Mašín Brothers Resistance Group, just like their father general Josef Masin in the fight against the Nazis and the Three King's Resistance Group. In the war we do not ask the enemy whether we can shoot him.
Jan Šinágl, 24.7.2017
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