Ing. Jan Kruml

* 1935

  • “All of a sudden there was this radio announcement: 'Let's all gather in protest at nine o'clock at the health center.' So we went and as I went with all those people I would say: 'That's a pity we don't have a car, as I could go to the radio to get some reporter who would cover the whole thing.” And this man said: 'Well I've got Robur! But the battery is weak. Boys, come and help me to give it a push!' So we would run back uphill. And this Robur, it was such a beast, it ran on diesel. So we had to push it quite hard. It would start, but after just a few meters it would stop again. Again and again. We were already running out of breath, we wanted to just leave it where it was, but then the engine finally started. So we drove this beast from Královo Pole to Beethoven Street. It was full of people, but tanks hadn't arrived yet. So I entered the radio building and looked for reporters I knew. And I found Jiřina Menšíková, so I asked her, she would eagerly pack her tape recorder, and we would get in and go to the Královopolská plant. But driving in this beast from Královo Pole to Beethoven Street, from Beethoven Street to Královopolská plant.. So I kept saying: 'We will be late, we're gonna miss it!' And we did indeed. We came to Královopolská and people were already leaving. Then Robur came and the driver, a working class man, opened the door and said: 'We brought Czechoslovak radio, get back everyone!' I could never forget this scene, as all those men, there were hundreds of them (as there were hundreds of people at Královopolská plant, including the manufacturing plant), so those hundreds or maybe even thousands of men just turned on the spot and hurried back.”

  • “We moved back to our flat. But of course, it was already looted. The Red Army soldiers did it. As they needed clothes, for example, so they would have something to wear after they would leave the army. Or a violin. That was something my father couldn't understand, why they had to steal his violin. But later we found that there was this colonel in the house we had been staying in. And as it occured on 9 May and all of a sudden the war finally ended, he did this gesture of goodwill, he gave this boy, me in fact, his saber. As soon as I heard the news I ran across the whole town of Zastávka to pick up the saber and I was carrying it proudly and I would wave with it. From time to time, Red Army men would stop me: 'Give,' to check whether it was sharp or blunt. It was blunt so they would give it back. So I carried it home. But then there was this column of supply vehicles following their main advance, and one of the soldiers yelled at me. After I came closer, he said: 'Show me!', so I would show him the saber and he would just put it in the car. And I said: 'That was a gift! From a Russian colonel!' And he said: 'What one hand giveth the other taketh away'. And that was it. So I have no memories of this Red Army colonel.”

  • “I believe that this nation of ours, with its thousand year old tradition among the states of Europe, does have a future. I believe in the young generation. I believe that the ideas of Masaryk and Havel will prevail. I believe that our youth, which has been given an opportunity I wasn't given, the opportunity to see the world, to learn languages, to make friends with anyone they like, would find its proper position. And that we have to be happy that being a part of the European Union is indeed a reason to be joyful for the whole nation. And that we are waiting for a new Václav Havel, who would lead us as equal members of the European community toward our common future.”

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    Brno, 04.08.2020

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I believe in the future of our nation

Jan Kruml during the meeting with the mayors representing villages that suceeded in the Village of the Year competition, 6 June 1996, Prague Castle
Jan Kruml during the meeting with the mayors representing villages that suceeded in the Village of the Year competition, 6 June 1996, Prague Castle
zdroj: Osobní archiv pamětníka

Jan Kruml was born on 6 April 1935 in the town of Rosice near Brno. His father was a teacher at a primary school in Zastávka u Brna, during the Second World War, he joined the resistance as a member of the Defence of the Nation (Obrana národa) organization. His uncle, Tomáš Kruml, was a Czechoslovak RAF serviceman. He witnessed the end of the Second World War and the arrival of the Red Army in May 1945. After the war, his family moved to Modřice, where Jan met his future wife, Jarmila. He studied at secondary technical school, then he graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, Brno University of Technology. Then he got a job in a design studio at Brno‘s Královopolská engineering plant. He was the chief project architect at the Ski Hotel project in Nové Město na Moravě. In August 1968, he joined protests against the Warsaw pact invasion. He also took photos during the troubled days at the beginning of the occupation. He took photos at a gathering in honor of Jan Palach in Brno as well. For his political activities he was forced to leave his job at the Královopolská engineering plant. For the next five years, he supervised construction of a sports arena in Královo Pole. Then he joined Drupos Enterprise and started specializing in re-cultivation of countryside and rural areas, which became his lifetime interest. After the collapse of the totalitarian state, he promoted The program for renewal of the rural areas, approved by the government in 1991. He was one of the founders of the Association for the Renewal of the Rural Areas. In 1995, he founded the Village of the Year competition. In 2020, he lived in Brno.