Václav Novotný

* 1942

  • "That happened in early February. The same month, I think on the 23rd, I came from school and mum took me to the room in the back. There, she snuggled against me and told me crying that daddy was arrested and imprisoned. She was ashamed for those tears. I couldn't get my head around it. They arrested him for not meeting the assigned levy to the state. For many years, he managed but then, we received a statement that all of our property was being confiscated by the state."

  • "My dad was arrested and mum could probably sense what would follow because farmers from the neighbouring villages were already being evicted. From our village, Mr. Říha - a former mayor - was kicked out. They created a state-owned farm. It was just a matter of time before this would affect mum and us five kids. She tried to keep everything running and to provide for us five kids. My grandma, then 77 years old and unable to walk, was also there. On 28 April, we received a call from an agricultural executive. It wasn't the courts to decide, it was the executives. He said: 'Well, madame, tomorrow, a car will come to move you out. You don't have to worry about anything, we will load everything ourselves."

  • "The family units were being evicted exclusively at the point when the breadwinner was locked up. Then it depended on how old were the kids. Říha's family had a sixteen-year-old, that was still okay. But in our family, the youngest child was still a baby plus there was the elderly grandma. They didn't mind at all to affect us. In short, the farmer had to be locked up because if a removal van came over while he was present, who knows what sort of scenes would occur. That's why it went this way. I know that all the families had their men locked up when the car showed up."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 22.01.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 02:06:57
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Memory of nations (in co-production with Czech television)
  • 2

    Praha, 12.03.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 02:09:05
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The communists destroyed not only my family but all of agriculture here

Václav Novotný, 2018
Václav Novotný, 2018
zdroj: autoři natáčení

Václav Novotný was born on 17 September 1942 in the village of Boreč near Mladá Boleslav. He comes from a protestant farmer‘s family whose genealogy goes all the way to 1695. His father Václav Novotný was an agricultural engineer and a farm owner. In 1953, he was arrested for not meeting the required levy of products to the state. Prior to that, the communists confiscated his machines and forbade him to employ anyone, so that he wouldn‘t be able to keep his farm running. The family property was then confiscated by the state. Václav, his mother, four siblings and a grandmother were evicted to a small apartment in the village of Hospozín. His parents then worked there at a state-owned farm as common workers. After high school graduation, Václav began working in a chemical factory in Litvínov. He became interested in the history of farmer families, which were affected by the 1950s collectivization. After 1990, the family farm in Boreč was returned to the hands of the family.