Jaroslav Havel

* 1937

  • "When father died, we did not even have enough money for the funeral. We did not have anything, with which to bury him. How we had to pay the taxes and only us two remained. And then we sold some animal, I think a calf, outside of the purview of the state. For that they hounded us to the criminal committee, that we had committed a criminal offense."

  • "Nobody can imagine this. I would not wish it upon anyone, to end one's course of life like this. It was a terrible sacrifice for me. I was content there, I was a student, I liked the student life, even though it was difficult. I had to be at the dorms. It was also bad teaching, but I was not a bad student, I had an average of 1.5 from the courses, for which I studied. I would not wish upon anyone for them to have to give up their education. I brought a terrible sacrifice to everything altogether back then."

  • "When they called me to mandatory military service, they did interviews with them. They wanted to know, what the person believes, how he is capable for them, what is his class background, and so on. When they did the interview with him, I know this exactly, because he later told us, because told us, how it happened, that he was reassigned to the labor formations without weapons. They asked him, what he believes, if he believes in socialism. And he answered them, that he believes only that, which he is convinced is right. And it was enough for them to reassign him and he went somewhere else. At the same time his friend of the same age who went with him nodded along to everything they wanted, and they assigned him to the air force. And so it was like this."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Hlinsko v Čechách, 12.12.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:41:08
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
  • 2

    Hlinsko v Čechách, 18.02.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:30:38
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

They sold the calf, so that they would have money for their father‘s funeral. They wanted to drive them to court

Jaroslav Havel during mandatory military service in the years 1957-1959
Jaroslav Havel during mandatory military service in the years 1957-1959
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Jaroslav Havel was born on the 30th of March 1937 on a farm in Vojtěch near Hlinsko in Czechia. His mother came from an agricultural family and his father was a carpenter. At the end of the Second World War he had the opportunity of experiencing the behavior of the Red Army soldiers who slept in their family‘s barn from close up. In the 50s he had to prematurely leave school after his brother‘s wedding to save their farm. After the founding of an agricultural co-operative (JZD) in their municipality he refused to take part in the village‘s collectivization. The local national committee and JZD pressured Jaroslav Havel and his parents into joining the JZD with all possible means. They punished them for years with forced tilling of land, above normal quotas and taxes. In the year 1962 Jaroslav‘s father was sentenced for not fulfilling agricultural quotas. The bullying only ended in the year 1974, when after heated court proceedings the JZD finally took the properties into their usage. Jaroslav never joined the JZD this whole time - against all of the unpleasant circumstances. During normalization he worked in Skuteč in the company Velamos. In the year 2023 he lived in Hlinsko in Czechia.