Otto Habermann

* 1928

  • "We were all from the Štíty State Farm. And two young citizens joined us here in Šumperk. A gentleman with a girl. And they came to us by a bus in advance, actually they came for us. And therefore, we were surprised that there are two people in it, such young people. Thus. Nevermind. We were travelling and we came to Austria, to Vienna, and when we got off the bus in Vienna, they came to us there, publicly, openly, and they told us that they were not going back. And they stayed there.”

  • "It was still the military service. If, that... When we enlisted, there was a job all day. All day. Not like today, then in some years it was canceled. But when we were there, it was there. When Čepička was there, it was like that. The alarm clock at six o'clock in the morning and work was until four o´clock in the afternoon, then from four to five there was some time off, or until six, and at eight o'clock in the evening no time off, it was the political-educational room, and there... no one was allowed to be in his room at the time. Only at certain places some games and similar things took place. One had to be there all the time. And then the lights-out were at ten o´clock in the evening and at half past ten it was the sleep time."

  • "And probably when the Germans came, in 1939, it happened that the Germans closed the German school and they moved to our Czech school. And we, who were then in the Czech school in the individual departments, we stayed, but the teaching took place in German. It was done in one or two days, and we continued school in German.”

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    Jeseník, 01.06.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 01:26:39
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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The pressure from the Communists was worse for us than during the war from the Germans

Otto Habermann was born on January 6, 1928 in Bukovice near Písařov near the town Štíty, near the Czech-Moravian border, to parents of Czech nationality. Bukovice was back then largely inhabited by German-speaking inhabitants. After Munich, the area became a part of the German occupation, Czech schools were closed and the lessons took place only in German. It was very difficult for the witness and other Czech children, because none of them spoke German well. When the war ended, Otto experienced the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans here. In the barn in Bukovice, a German family of three was brutally murdered at the time. After the onset of the communist regime in 1948, the Habermanns were pushed to join the Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD). The farm they had was thirteen hectares of land and livestock. Due to this, Otto had an unsatisfactory personnel profile, and immediately after joining the military service in 1950, he was assigned to the Auxiliary Technical Battalions after a political check. Thanks to the foresight of his father František, who had a displaced German house transferred to him, which no one wanted in the village, and thus untied him from the co-ownership of the farm. The witness was eventually transferred to a normal military unit in Milovice. The Habermanns managed to maintain their farm until 1958. Otto then worked in the Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD) as an agronomist. After two years, the JZD was taken over by the state company, where Otto worked until his retirement in 1988. He and his wife Hana raised three children, Libuše, Hana and Otto.