František Vlk

* 1946

  • "And the service ended and now everyone went to Letná. We didn't know why, but the locals were simply informed to go to Letná. Well, we went too. So, more or less by chance, we came to Letná as well. It was a huge gathering; I have never seen so many people together in my life. Well, of course it was cold, so I had a plum brandy, so I took it out. I offered it to all the people standing around. Geez, you almost made me lose my mind there: 'That's not allowed, they'll accuse us of being drunk here.' I don't know what else and so on. Well, I took it because it was cold, so did my wife, and I hid it in my rucksack again. So we took part there, it was the first such big gathering that I took part in and I say; it was something quite unimaginable."

  • “That's why we found ourselves in Budějovice, because my parents farmed in Křídlovice, they only owned six hectares, which was nothing at all. Well, but they were called kulaks and enemies of socialism. Well, they were constantly increasing the supply rate of various commodities, basically unfulfillable. Every year the fields area changed, that means they were further and further away from the house. Now we only had cowhide. We did not have horses or any mechanization; it did not exist back then. So before my father drove to a field over there with those cows, which was a kilometre long, sandy, barren and so on. It is just that these kinds of problems were constant. So my mother fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis, she was first taken to the hospital, then in the sanatorium. And the father was essentially left alone to farm. He had an old mother, she moved in with us. We were three children; I was the oldest. Well, I was, I do not know, nine years old at the time, and when my mother got sick, I had to go to school, of course. And when I came home from school, my grandmother cooked something, gave it to me, and I rushed to the field to bring my father some food, because he couldn't come back for lunch because it was so far away, so he was basically there all day.”

  • "When I was eleven years old, when we came here to Budějovice, the elections were sometime in November, so I don't remember exactly when. Well, my father's parents and mother, my grandmother, so they did not have to take part in the elections, so they left. The grandmother went to her daughter over there in Slovácko, the parents also got lost somewhere, and we children were alone at home. Well, and now the election commission came with a shoebox, since ours didn't turn up for the elections, not even granny, so they tried to make sure there was a 100% turnout. So about three guys came to us and now where are the parents and our granny. I'll say: 'They're not at home, they're gone somewhere.' And unfortunately, there were the voting sheets behind the table. Now one saw it, now he pulled it out, put it in my hand and wanted me to throw it in that box. I refused, so he slapped me, which worked, so I threw it in the box. Well, that's why I voted for three people when I was eleven years old, so that's an example of communist leadership."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Moravské Budějovice , 10.03.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 59:54
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I voted for three people at the age of eleven

František Vlk – drawing by student named Jan Liška
František Vlk – drawing by student named Jan Liška
zdroj: PNS

František Vlk was born on June 27, 1946 in České Křídlovice. His parents farmed a small piece of land there. After the communists came to power, their supplies were increased and the fields were moved further and further away. The mother became ill with tuberculosis and the father no longer had the strength to resist the bullying, so the family moved to Moravské Budějovice in 1957. František made a living as a craftsman and faced problems due to his faith during normalization. He and his wife took part in demonstrations in 1989 in Prague and participated in the founding of the Civic Forum in Moravské Budějovice. After the revolution, he worked as the head of the museum and also acted as the chronicler of the city. He is the author of several publications on local history. In 2022 he lived in Moravské Budějovice.