Stanislav Bayer

* 1931

  • “A barricade stood in front of Jedomělice. We saw a car coming from Libovice, and since at that time there were no other cars than German, we quickly disappeared into the forest. There were some birch trees, and we stopped there and waited. The Germans arrived to the barricade with a fully loaded car and looked around. They were two Gestapo men. When they saw us, one of them waited by their car, and the other headed toward us. We were almost unable to move, especially my uncle, the poor chap was all covered in sweat. The Gestapo man showed us a piece of paper with the name of their destination - Karlovy Vary. We advised him to drive towards Carda, then onto Hvězda, and the continue on the highway in the direction of Mšec. I was the only one to be able to speak German, because, as I said, we learnt German in school. I explained it to him. But he refused my advice, they intended to go down to Jedomělice instead, and then via Pozdeň, and Kalivody, in order to avoid the forests around Mšec, where partisans were already active. We suggested that they go in the direction of Carda and then take the road which would get them to the Jedomělice road behind the barricade. He ordered me to go with him and show him the direction. When he saw that I spoke the truth, he called the other man, they got into their car and left without even saying thank you. We didn’t wait to see what would happen to these Germans. Uncle and I hurried home. That day, German convoys were moving on the road from Slaný to Mšec, and they were escorted by an airplane, which was firing at the road to secure free passage for them. There was a partisan group in the forests near Mšec, and partisans were taking Germans prisoners. Some people managed to get hold of weapons. But few were able to handle them, and disasters thus often occurred. Mr. Pondělíček lost his life near the sheep-fold near Hvězda. He wanted to fire a bazooka at the Germans who were riding on the road towards Mšec, but the backblast tore his body apart. Some younger men in Libovice obtained firearms, they put on armbands and they set up partisan guards. There were guards standing at the crossroad, and other guards by the pond, and they opened fire at each other by mistake.”

  • “After 1948 the farmers in Czechoslovakia were pressured so much that within a couple of years, almost no independent farmers remained. The farmers were ordered to deliver prescribed quotas of agricultural products, and these deliveries were in fact intended to destroy them. If they failed to meet the quotas, heavy fines were imposed upon them. The district officers would determine what crops the individual farmers were to grow. Some of them required a lot of manual work. At that time it was difficult for the farmers to find workers. Often they had to rely only on the help of their family members. At the beginning, all people in our village kept together and they were helping each other. That was one of the reasons why it took so long to establish a Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD) in our village. Mr. Popper’s estate was turned into a state farm in 1951. The farm of Vlastimil Hora was added to it in 1955. He became totally financially exhausted by the penalties for the non-delivery of the required quotas, and he thus offered his farm to the state and moved to Dřínov. He had new machinery on his farm, and the state farm appropriated it, and his house was transformed into employee accommodation. In 1952, the Secret Police arrested my father František Bayer, and Antonín Ibl, Josef Kolář, and František Jindřich were arrested later. This was done to scare people. For a long time, our father didn’t tell us what the interrogation was like, only after some time he told us that he had been forced to sign a document that he would never speak about the interrogation. If he disclosed anything, he would be arrested again and never return. He also told us that the Secret Police was keeping detailed records about everybody from our family, including children. They monitored who we were meeting, and so on. The worst and longest interrogation was experienced by uncle Jindřich. He returned the day after in the morning, utterly exhausted and he came directly to my father. The policemen had been interrogating him the whole night, they had been taking turns and they hadn’t even given him a glass of water.”

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    Vlastivědné muzeum ve Slaném, 11.05.2011

    (audio)
    délka: 52:22
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Recollections of Witnesses from Slánsko and Slaný
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With the personal evaluations we had, we were not even allowed touch the steering-wheel when we came to the army

S manželkou na pouti ve Smečně.jpg (historic)
Stanislav Bayer
zdroj: Při natáčení v muzeu

Stanislav Bayer was born December 15, 1931 in Libovice. During the war he was attending the elementary school in Slaný. After completing his education just after the end of the war, he worked for his father, who was an independent farmer. In the postwar period, when many people were leaving to „resettle“ the borderlands, agriculture was suffering from lack of workers. In 1952 he began his compulsory military service, and he was sent to Brno to so-called „reeducation corps“ which were intended for sons of farmers and small entrepreneurs. After 1948 the farmers were pressed by communist officials to start collective farming. A state-owned farm was established in the village and the farmers feared that in case of its further expansion, they would lose not only their land, but their entire property as well, in addition to being forcibly moved from their houses, as it had happened in other villages in the region of Slaný. Under the pressure of the events and his illness, Stanislav‘s uncle Jindřich decided to hand his farm over to him. In 1956, a Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD) was formed in Libovice, and the family had to surrender their fields to the cooperative, but they were allowed to remain in their home. Stanislav Bayer worked in this cooperative as a storesman. In the 1970s he was one of the main founders of the Union of Cooperative Farmers in the village, which ought to protect the interests of the farmers in the cooperative board. The fields were returned to his family after 1989. In 1990 Stanislav Bayer was elected the mayor if Libovice, and he served in this position for twelve years.