Ratmír Hruška

* 1938

  • "A Russian came to us that time. He was dressed in civilian clothes, but he was a Russian. It was a cell that was supposed to help those who didn't know what to do with weapons. So four guys got together, Václav Ždímera, Rokosil and someone else. They took it from behind to that villa. After a while there were a few shots and a grenade. The Germans were eliminated. Even the girls I went to school with."

  • "Across the street, the Germans lived in a villa like this. Their dad was an SS man, a big one. They had them at home, I found out later... I went to school with their girls. Then it happened when the liberation was over, or should have been. They had submachine guns and a machine gun at home. We were hiding in the basement because there was bombing. Mom forgot something, got herself together and went upstairs to the room. When she appeared in the window, you could hear 'tatatata' and mom was lying on the floor flat. By accident nothing happened to her. But I was very afraid."

  • "We lived in a house like this, which used to be a hotel. And the Germans were clever. They painted a red cross on the roof, and in the war it was said that the red cross and the hospital would not be bombed. And they made their Hitler headquarters in that house. We they lived there with them. The German soldiers walked along the corridor, on the tiles. We threw sand under their feet to make it crunch and slide. When they flew onto the sand, they also fell, that was our kind of resistance against the Germans."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Úštěk, 15.03.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 54:33
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The young generation should work on peace and ecology

whitness
whitness
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Ratmír Hruška was born on August 11, 1938 in Prague in the family of a dentist and a ladies‘ tailor. He had a sister and a brother twenty years younger, both siblings survived. He originally lived with his parents in the house where the SS staff was located. German families lived in the house opposite. He experienced severe shelling when his mother was in direct danger. After his parents‘ divorce, he moved to his grandparents in Úštěk at the age of 7, where he lived for the rest of his life. The sister stayed with the father. Grandfather the miller came to town after traveling abroad. After a few years, they moved and lived permanently in the mill building. He started elementary school in Prague and finished it in Úštěk. At the age of ten, he became seriously ill with meningitis. He and his mother later moved to Prague for two years, after which he went back to Úštěk to his grandparents. He trained as an electrician and worked in the field all his life. He is divorced, with his first wife he has three children, 2 sons and 1 daughter. His great hobby was model making and electric toys.