Jan Hrad

* 1937

  • "In the village there was a Russian prisoner of war, a young boy, who was then gifted sewn shorts by women from hakenkreuz flags. They also sewed him other clothes. To this day I do not know for what reason he was deployed there, probably to help some peasants in agriculture. And I remember once they brought SS men to the village, and one of them was even an officer or a non-commissioned officer. He had these beautiful high leather riding boots. And this Russian prisoner of war helped guard him there. And when he saw the boots, he [shouted], 'Give me the boots!' But he wouldn't give them to him. And [the boy again]: 'Give them!' And he was grabbing at him and trying to take his shoes off. The mayor and the people prevented him [from doing so], otherwise he would have taken the boots from him. They explained to him that he couldn't get them, that he had to go to the headquarters of the American army, which was in Sušice, and he can try to ask them to give him boots like that. And I remember that he actually went with them to that Susica, on foot, because the escort took them away on foot, there was no means of transport. He went with them and came back with the shoes, [really] got them."

  • "We came home to the village and the American army had already moved in. The first [thing I saw was] that there was a Jimsa, a truck, pulled up, and behind it was a tow truck, a kind of two-wheeled cart. And as I walked by, all of a sudden I saw colored candies scattered around that looked like lentilky (smarties). Well, as an eight-year-old boy, I was so excited! So I looked to the left, to the right - no one was there. So I leaned over the back [of the cart] and now I [started stuffing] the sweets behind my shirt, because I was just wearing these short pants and a shirt. Anything we always found [as boys], we hid behind our shirt. So I was throwing it behind the shirt, the smarties, [only] all of a sudden somebody grabbed me from behind by the collar and stood me up. I looked up and it was a black guy! I'll never forget the fright. I thought it was the devil... His white teeth were shining as he smiled at me. He stood me up, took my hand and led me. He was staying in a cottage next door, so he dragged me there. I was so scared, I peed my pants. I've never seen a black man in my life, not even in a picture. He dragged me to this cottage and stuffed their chocolates and canned goods behind my shirt. That's the kind of belly I got! And then he sent me home."

  • "[Towards the end of the war] there was a shortage of feed for the goats and cows we had. There was simply no hay. My grandfather learned that someone was selling hay near Soběšice, so he went to get it with two cows. It was at the time when the German army was retreating. When he was bringing the hay, somewhere behind Soběšice he got between the [German] column of hacks and armored cars. That road led from Soběšice to Nezdice or Strašín. The column overtook him, and his great luck was that he then turned off the main road onto a secondary one that led directly to Bukovník and Bílenice. After a while the dredgers came and shot the column..."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Plzeň, 19.06.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:15:52
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
  • 2

    Plzeň, 12.08.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:45:44
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
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During his studies at the Episcopal Gymnasium, he dreamed of being a missionary in foreign countries. He ended up working as a bricklayer

Jan Hrad as a sergeant in 1967
Jan Hrad as a sergeant in 1967
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Jan Hrad‘s date of birth in the civil registry and other official documents is 15 May 1937 in Bilenice u Sušice, but he was born a day later. His father Tomáš Hrad was forced to work in Nazi Germany during the war, but due to a prolonged illness he was transferred to the arms factory in Strakonice. His mother Marie, maiden name Tábor, was born into a farmer‘s family in Krejnice in the foothills of the Šumava Mountains. During the war she worked in the PAP paper mill in Sušice. Jan Hrad remembers dredgers flying onto trains on the line from Susice to Horažďovice towards the end of the war. During the liberation of his hometown, he welcomed American soldiers and saw General Patton at the unveiling of the monument to Jindřich Šimon Baar at Výhledy near Klenčí pod Čerchovem. After the war, the family lived in the now extinct village of Konobrže in Most. The witness studied at the Episcopal Grammar School in Bohosudov until Akce K in 1950. He continued his studies at the town school in the now defunct Kopiste and then in Žihobce. With the mark of a „dummy“ he trained as a bricklayer-plasterer in Pilsen. Together with his classmates, he was herded against his will into a parade in support of the regime as part of the currency reform on June 1, 1953. After his apprenticeship, he graduated from the evening industrial school of construction and worked as a taskmaster at the Land Construction. After the war, in 1960 he married Lenka Angelevska, a Greek refugee from the 1947 civil war. He worked as a construction manager on a number of major projects in Pilsen and the surrounding area. He then worked for the Forestry of the Czech Republic, the District Construction Company Plzeň-North, and then again for the Forestry of the Czech Republic. After retiring in 1997, he was a tour guide at the West Bohemian Museum. At the time of filming (2022) he lived in Pilsen, he has a son Jan and a daughter Ludmila.