Miloš Kypta

* 1931

  • "In the morning we lined up, and this commander told us: 'You here are now the reserves, you will go home. You are not useful for anything here. I have my own trained boys. And I guarantee you, that these barracks will not be conquered by the Russians. I am ashamed, I came with Freedom, with an army from the East, and look what they have done to us, I am ashamed of it. And so we will not let them in here.' And so we later found out, that when the officers from the reserves were with us, that we had a gathering, that we will come together sometime after a month, somewhere in a pub, and they described it to us, because they had been there longer, how it went. They said: 'He really did bring out those antitank cannons in front of the barracks and when the Russians came, first there always came that truck, he did not talk to them at all. He announced to them that they will stay ten kilometres from the barracks or they will shoot.' Only it cost him his position."

  • "I was called before the national committee, where I showed them the book and they said: 'You are ending with the Kypta company.' And so I said: 'I am ending with the Kypta company, how should I understand that?' And now they poured out those speeches of theirs on me: 'You do not understand (I am not sure if they were informal with me), that something like this is happening here. Here ended the exploitation of one person by another, like forget about it, that you will be some sort of licensed businessman. Here is the stamp, you are ending.' And so that was how it was made concrete. Father also worked out an agreement with another colleague, who had a tailoring business, I do not know, if they had caught wind of it, and somehow he bent to the comrades, but they would not make him the manager there. And so he had a workshop and I ended up in that workshop. I have to say, that that was not something, which I would have chosen, but I was there. I did not stay there for very long, because father had lots of contacts everywhere, and so something came to his attention. They said: 'Look, make sure to clean that boy away somewhere, he will end in the mines, there is a drive going on.' There was a drive for workers going on, about sixty or eighty thousand people into industry and into the mines. And that made sure, that all of these uncomfortable people would go into the mines. Well and father told himself, that we have to do something, that you cannot end up in Ostrava in the mines. And so in the end I was cheered, that I stepped into industry by myself. I found myself a place in Aero Radotín at the metal cutter and so with that I had taken the wind out of their sails. I was already in industry and so they could not touch me, the mines therefore escaped me. And that was also an exclusive factory, there they made the fuselage for Russian jets and there were all of the same cases there like me. I stood at a machine there, well-behaved, and greeted the person beside me. He said: 'I am doctor Stránský'..."

  • "We were always away over the weekend and we had a, well I have to also mention this, not a maid, my parents were sensitive to that. Maid seemed to them as degrading to her. She was a helper in our household, as we always dutifully said. And so this Anča had her own little room with his and helped us, because we needed to clean up the rooms, when the workers left, and so on. For example she helped mother in the kitchen and so on. And Anča, when we came home on Sunday from our trip, was sitting there crying, the poor dear, and described to us, what had happened. The Gestapo had broken into our house for a house inspection, if we did not have any partisans, or what they wanted to see, we do not know. And because our father had to lock that one room, he explained it to Anča. He said: 'Anča, it is not against you, of course you know, that you can go anywhere, walk, but if a thief came and I did not have this room, where I have fabrics, where I have the money register and all of that, I have to have it locked. Otherwise the insurance company would not give me anything. And so that one room was locked not because of that and not because of you, just so it was clear.' And, well, they, when they could not get into it, because of that it seemed to them suspicious. And so that beautifully modeled brass door handle, it was an apartment with three metres forty high ceilings, the tall decorated doors with that ballustrade in front of the doors, beautiful. And so they broke off that door handle."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Újezd nad Lesy, 16.10.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:24:06
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The suit from his father‘s company changed to overalls

Miloš Kypta as a schoolboy 1945
Miloš Kypta as a schoolboy 1945
zdroj: Rodinné album Miloše Kypty

Miloš Kypta was born on the 25th of April 1931 in Prague to the family of the businessman Josef Kypta. His father ran a men‘s fashion salon on Václavské náměstí at that time. At six years old Miloš had to fight against diphtheria for his life. He lived his childhood in the protectorate as a member of the 21st troop of the Club of Czech Touristsm which functioned on the principles of Scouting. After the war he studied at a business academy. The February coup d‘état politically split the family left and right and his father‘s company was nationalized. Miloš Kypta found himself a job in industry, so that he would not have to end up in the mines. He spent most of his professional life in the business Domácí potřeby [Home Necessities]. He was conscripted into mandatory service in the year 1952, he did support tasks and later became a driver. In the year 1957 he married Věra Johnová. Later the couple raised their son Tomáš and daughter Marcela. Shortly before the Velvet Revolution his Scouting brothers revived the 21st troop. At the beginning of the new millennium his family left Prague and moved to Újezd nad Lesy. Here the witness also lived at the time of the filming of the interview in autumn of the year 2022.