Ing. Jaroslav Holler

* 1927  †︎ 2016

  • “They had a table their draped with a red cloth, and Unionists all around it. Not that they actually asked anything, they berated me for committing admiration of America and for the fact I was from Pilsen, so they might have known, and that they propose I should be expelled from the school. They were finished with me in two minutes. They knew everything ahead of time. The next up was Bořivoj Kasl. And he went too, because his dad was a builder.”

  • “Then in the third year I had to join the Technische Nothilfe, as did the whole class. The SS man who led us, always ordered: ‘Ein Lied singen!’ So we had to start singing straight away. He loved ‘Nemelem, nemelem’ [We’re not milling, we’re not milling], but he didn’t know we were singing to f... the work, he didn’t understand it and we marched proudly on. People on the streets nodded at us in recognition, but if any of them had told him the meaning, we’d have been in proper trouble.”

  • “When they arrived it looked like there was a fair on the square. Someone brought a cognac, the real thing, and gave it to the two-metre-tall black, he nodded, took a swig, and sent it on. Of course, lilacs were blooming at the time - that is the flower of liberation in my mind. Then the soldiers were ordered to occupy the parks and set up tents there. There were some five tents standing in the park by the grammar school on Mikuláš Square. What I found quite wondrous, quick as a flash they set up a mobile laundry by the Sokol gym hall in Šafařík Orchard, and it spat out ironed shirts one after the other, so they’d be ready for the parade.”

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    Plzeň - byt sběrače, 18.05.2015

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    délka: 03:31:40
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

When you look back and see you got some work done, that it’s all in order, then you forget all the trouble you had doing it

Jaroslav Holler 1939 - 1945
Jaroslav Holler 1939 - 1945
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Jaroslav Holler was born on 20 April 1927 in Pilsen. His family lived on Křížkova Street at Roudná. Jaroslav „Shorty“ joined the Scouts troop Stopa (Track) in 1936. He played the trumpet in both the Scouts and the school orchestra. He did competitive swimming in the Czech Swimming Club, he was an active mountaineer and an enthusiastic skier. During the war he was sent to forced labour in Technische Nothilfe. As a Scout, he was an active participant in the liberation of Pilsen during the last days of the war. He was granted an exception by the Ministry of Education, allowing him to successfully pass two matriculation exams - at the grammar school on Mikuláš Square and at the Secondary Technical School of Construction in Pilsen. Soon after starting them he gave up studies at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University, he was denied student accommodation and could not afford to rent a place in Prague. He thus found employment at the bridgeworks of the Škoda Works. This gave him insight and experience in construction, and he decided to take up the career of a construction engineer. Despite having his background assessment recommend he be expelled from studies because of an „admiration of the American way of life“, in 1952 he graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. He was allotted a job at Mining Projects Ostrava, and he even kept his place there at the drawing board throughout his mandatory military service. He then moved on to Mining Projects Pilsen. Background profiling during the tenure of President Novotný caused him to end up doing manual labour at Armabeton (a concrete producer). He headed the Department of Capital Equipment at the Škoda Works, which were then renamed the V. I. Lenin Works. He worked as chief building engineer at Stavoprojekt (engineering projects) for more than twenty years. He was a member of the nationwide committee for steel structures. From 1987 he worked at the 1st Brno Machine Works. In 1990, having reached pension age, he established his own building project company Statikon. He took part in numerous projects of both industrial and civil engineering, such as the Regional Police Headquarters in Pilsen (Ing. arch. Gloserová), or the former ROH (Revolutionary Trade Union Movement) Building on American Avenue in Pilsen (Ing. arch. Hrubec). His most recent finished project is the look-out tower on Mount Špičák in Šumava, which was opened to the public in 2014. Mr. Jaroslav Holler died in 2016