Josef Krejčík

* 1932

  • “The military service (the recruitment - trans.) was such that I was able (to do it) without problems. We were then drafted into the army, they assembled us in Pardubice at the station and they divided us into military units. From there, they took us, my group in particular, to Čáslav where we waited until the evening. The cars came, it was already dark outside because you used to join the army on 28 October. We jumped into the cars, the tarp was pulled down and we set off. We drove and drove, no one knew where we were going. We jumped out of the cars, did not know where we were and we appeared in the military area in Mimoň. They made us go towards some buildings which were usually wooden in the army. There was a table by the door. You got undressed by the first door, put your clothes into a bag, put an address on that, and the civilian clothes were sent home. And as you passed the door, you became a soldier.”

  • “My mum - my dad died shortly in 1948 - and she was at home all the time. She was ill with heart, she was sick. She worked in a laundry in the Tesla company. It was better as she found a job and earned some money but it was not that great. Nowadays, people dress by colour and you throw away the old-fashioned clothes, I used to wear patched stockings, and my mother fixed what she could. It is hard to explain it to people nowadays.”

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    Přelouč, 03.03.2022

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He brought his father lunch when he was guarding a savings bank

Josef Krejčík during his military service, early 1950s
Josef Krejčík during his military service, early 1950s
zdroj: Josef Krejčík´s archive

Josef Krejčík was born on 31 July 1932 in Přelouč to a family of a basket-maker. We started to attend school in Přelouč in 1938. The family listened to a foreign radio thanks to the so-called “churchilka” (a type of device that enabled people to listen to foreign radio - trans.) that were illegally manufactured by the Radiotechna Přelouč company. Witness´s father joined the Revolutionary Guards at the end of the war and he took part in disarming the Nazis. Josef brought him lunches and helped to accommodate the prisoners of war. When he finished the town school, he studied to become a basket-maker, and then he started to work in the Tesla company in Přelouč. He spent his military service from 1950 to 1953 in the Technical auxiliary battalions because his father was self-employed. He returned to the Tesla company and he graduated from Secondary Technical School. He worked his way up to safety technician in the company and supervised safety at work. He got married in 1956 and had two children. He joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party in the 1970s. He got retired in 1989 and he lived in his native home in Přelouč in 2022.