Antonín Kasík

* 1918

  • “The youth of then was of such a patriotic feeling, I am lacking it today at young people, at that time we were really taking our lives for the Republic – as patriots. In 1938 I went to the recruitment for the first time, I was then twenty one. The recruitment took place though, but it was finished with it, because then the Republic was occupied by Germans.”

  • “I was supposed to receive a flat, because I got married after the war. I was supposed to get a flat, but because I was against the entry of the armies of the Warsaw contract, I got no flat. Funny was, that the cadre man called me home: ´Look, come for the decree.´ And before I came from home to Letná for the decree, the flat was gone. Some well-doers said a good word for it and discoloured me that I was against the entry of the armies, so I even quit the party then.”

  • “We were taxing with it the politicians of France and England, with whom Czechoslovakia had a peace contract about help. But at that time Chamberlain, and in France it was Daladier, forsook us as the Republic and they simply trampled the contract under foot. The Republic was left in the lurch and at that time President Beneš – who was a real statesman and was leading the Republic after Masaryk – so it was hardly possible to want from him to decide whether the Republic should defend itself against the German superiority or not.”

  • “The organization of Předvoj was connected to the communist resistance, but at that time we were not looking left or right, the priority simply was to fight here against Fascism, which was rushing on the Republic.”

  • “Prague wanted soldiers, it didn´t want any civilians who couldn´t handle a gun. I don´t know where all the weapons came from, we simply provided the squad leaving for Prague with food and weapons. And they placed themselves well in Prague, they were fighting, nobody lost his life, they returned all with a great glory. So the movement had a task to prepare people for the revolution, so that is why I went after the officers, but in the end I was disappointed with them, because they were afraid to head the unit going to help to Prague. I was also blaming them for that.”

  • “I was afraid. The week when the arresting was taking place, I nearly didn´t sleep and I kept listening if a car would stop in front of the house – to be able to escape. Well, it didn´t happen.”

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After Munich the Republic was – it was simply left in the lurch and it was hardly possible to want from President Beneš to decide whether to defend ourselves against the German superiority or not

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Antonín Kasík

Antonín Kasík was born on 3rd January 1918 in Komárov near Beroun. He served out as a chef and before the war he worked in the National House in Vinohrady in Prague. In 1938 he went to the recruitment though, but due to the signing of the Munich diktat he didn´t join the army any more. At that time he worked as the chief of the kitchen in the Joint-Stock ironworks in Komárov, where he also founded an eight-member unit of the communist resistance organization Předvoj (Vanguard). It was distributing leaflets in the surrounding villages and Antonín Kasík himself was obstructing transport of produced grenades, for the resistance movement he found a map of the military area in Brdy and was delivering food to people keeping out of the Gestapo in a forest hiding place. In February 1945 all his colleagues were taken into custody by the Gestapo and many of the people from his group ended up on the gallows on 2nd May 1945. Antonín Kasík was not arrested and at the close of the war he started to work again - he was preparing leaflets and proclamations to the nation. In May, when the uprising broke out in Prague, he even made up a unit of thirteen soldiers from the first Republic who went to help to Prague. After the war he went for another six months to the military service, he entered the Czechoslovak Communist Party and until 1967, when he was retired, he worked for the Public Security (Police) in the department of economy. In 1968 he was against the entry of the armies of the Warsaw contract and in the same year he quit the party. For twenty five years he then worked as a trainer in the ice hockey club Sparta Prague, he founded there a tournament called Memorial of the director Martin Frič. Later he wrote a chronicle of the ice hockey club Sparta Prague.