Richard Husch

* 1930

  • "Dad came around midnight, he went home, Petržáleks lived with us after the Werners. They told him not to go to see us to Bělá, that we were sleeping anyway, they let him sleep on the couch there, my father lay down, soon the citizens of Hroubovice came. Mr. Krejčí knocked out my father's tooth as he was waking him up, and they took him to Werner's factory to the bathroom, where he was imprisoned until May 9. Then he was taken to the dancing hall, there he was tortured, first they burned his hair and then they tortured him. First, he had to take off his shoes, because they said he wouldn't need them anymore, Josef Konrád took them on the spot, and then they tortured my father. They dragged him in front of the pub and shot him there. Well not shoot him, but they dragged him into the so-called anti-aircraft shelter where he came to himself and there the locals beat him to death."

  • "Dad went first, of course, he went on my birthday on July 26, I accompanied him to Pardubice. And my mother went in October, I don't know what date it was, no one expected that. The company was then run by Mrs. Černohorská from Bělá, who took care of the company and the four of us. The youngest sister was three years old. So, the lady was childless. And after the war no one remembered to praise her. Sometimes, when I read it in the newspapers, on the radio, on television, it is how these people are not rewarded but they are appreciated, back then no one even remembered her. Perhaps they even thought it was bad."

  • "When the Germans occupied the border area, when the mail came to the leader, he came to the class and said, 'Get your bag and go home, the Germans are not allowed to go to school!' Half a year later, when the Germans took over all of Czechoslovakia, the same leader came and said, 'Take your bag, the Jews are not allowed to go to school.' "

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Hradec Králové, 12.06.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:30:35
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

They brought dad into the dancing hall in the middle of the party and closed the door so that no one could leave. And before they tortured him, they told him to take off his shoes, that he wouldn‘t need them anymore.

Richard Husch military service
Richard Husch military service
zdroj: archive of the witness

Richard Husch was born on July 26, 1930 into a mixed marriage (his mother came from a Jewish family, his father was a Hungarian German). The parents ran a hand embroidery business in Hroubovice u Skutče, where the family lived. They were arranging orders and drove them to the surrounding villages to women embroiderers. After the German occupation, his father was forced to divorce his Jewish wife. He did not do it. He saved his wife Hedvika from the transportation. Nevertheless, in 1944 they both had to go to labor camps, the mother to Hagibor, the father to Bystřice near Benešov. Their 4 children (Richard and three younger sisters) were left alone in Hroubovice and were looked after by a secretary Mrs. Černohorská. After the end of the war, Johann Husch returned to Hroubovice, but was immediately captured by the local partisans and publicly tortured and murdered after two days. The Husch family‘s property and the house where the national committee settled were confiscated. Hedvika‘s mother managed to get investigation and exhumation after years. Some of the perpetrators were convicted, but were not punished. The Huschs still had big problems. Neither Richard nor his sisters could study and they found employment with great difficulties. Richard finally settled in the Chroustovice collective farm, where he also got an apartment for work. He got married and had two children. He currently lives in a nursing home in Luže. All his life he has been trying to clear his father‘s name and return the family property.