Pavel Mejsnar

* 1936

  • “The presidential election was on [in 1953], and since we would walk in formation to and from the factory, it so happened that, on the election day, me, Pepík and Jarda walked next to each other, as we were used to, and we discussed who could be elected president. I thought Viliam Široký could be the president. I said, come on, they won’t elect that accordion player from Kladno [meaning Antonín Zápotocký]. And lo and behold, when we were in the canteen, I was called to the office. I had to leave my lunch and go. In the office, there was one of those primitive wardens, and he asked me how dared I criticise the decision of our Party – for the Party knows best who to choose for the president. I wasn’t aware what the matter was, but then I realised. Most likely, a warden was walking near us and told on me. I knew it could get ugly, so I quickly added that if the Party knows whom to choose, I have nothing more to say, and I left.”

  • “My sister was convicted, but we didn’t know anything about the sentence – whether it was for a year, for life, or for a month. Maybe a document did exist, but we never saw any. All we knew was that she would stay in the Vrchlabí prison for some time. A few days later, mum baked something nice, made this parcel, and then mum, dad and I walked to Vrchlabí to make sure she gets the parcel. Dad knew a little German, so he would speak. Vrchlabí was almost fully German, with just about six per cent of Czechs. My sister got the parcel. We were standing on the walkway in front of the prison and looking into the windows with bars. When she came back eventually, she said they put the table to the window, put a chair on the table, and she climbed up so she could wave at us through the bars. That was the last time we saw her. We knew nothing about her for a year after that.”

  • “Back then, toolmaking was all about grabbing a file and filing the thing to perfection. We’d get a piece of a steel profile and had to file it to the correct specs – the right size, the correct angles, the perfect flat – for six weeks straight. I loved it so much! The workbench and the vice dated back to the Laurin times. Our foremen came all from the Laurin times too. I was lucky enough to have one of them as my tutor. He was about fifty and he actually remembered Mr Laurin. He was an engine technician and very much into it, and we agreed that I would bring a motorcycle that I had at home in for repair. He arranged the paperwork, I took it to the factory through the guards, and he helped me out. In addition to standard training work that we all did, I would repair the motorbike on top. We just dismantled it to the last bit. He taught me to adjust the crankshaft and everything I needed to know. I could make my living doing that even today.”

  • “Back in ’68, I would take little Pavel to the preschool every morning. I would stay at work longer in the afternoon, so his mum picked him and took him home. The day that the Russians attacked us… I don’t know how I learned about it – we didn’t own a telephone back then. I immediately recalled the events in Hungary. I thought, well I’ll take him to the preschool today, but who knows if I ever get to pick him up again because military mobilisation was possible, and I was crying.”

  • “The commander of the military administration office got in and we drove round the surrounding villages at night, recruiting reservists to report in the barracks [in October 1956]. It was tough when we arrived at night, woke up the family and told them their dad had to go to the army in the morning. The order stated that men must report in the barracks in the morning. The reservists really arrived the next day, the beds were prepared, but nobody knew what would be next. The worst thing about it was that nobody knew who was a friend and who was a foe, and which side to take.”

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Vrchlabí, 28.02.2023

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    délka: 02:58:08
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    Hradec Králové, 14.03.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:55:23
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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He worried about his sister during the war and his children in 1968

Pavel Mejsnar at Schola cantorum, Strahov Monastery, 1946. The tallest boy in the back
Pavel Mejsnar at Schola cantorum, Strahov Monastery, 1946. The tallest boy in the back
zdroj: Archiv Pavla Mejsnara

Pavel Mejsnar was born in Dolní Štěpanice on 15 May 1936 as the last of four children. His father spent World War I in combat in Galicia. The family found it very difficult when a German farmer reported his sick sister Marie to authorities for feigning sickness during her total deployment. Marie was kept in prison in Vrchlabí for one year without her family knowing anything about her. The witness experienced a great deal of fear again at the end of the war when members of the Vlasov army took his brother Pepík (Josef) away for a brief period. Later on, his brother started running a farm left behind by deported Germans. The communists took a part of his property away in the 1950s because he was the only farmer far and wide who would not join the cooperative. Pavel Mejsnar left for Prague to study at a grammar school at age 11, and composer Miroslav Venhoda admitted him to his choir, Schola cantorum. He witnessed the deportation of the monks from the monastery in 1950. After 1950, he joined a vocational school in Mladá Boleslav, got a toolmaker training, and wanted to continue studying at a technical high school. He was not allowed to, however, due to his poor ‘cadre profile’. Instead, he joined the Škoda plant in Vrchlabí and stayed on board for more than 50 years. During his military service, he was on duty during the Hungarian uprising (1956) and guarded the Slovak border with Hungary. He experienced the same concerns of mobilisation during the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968. He refused to join the CPC several times. Not being a communist party member, he would not be promoted at work. Following 1989, he embraced Škoda’s expansion into the western markets and the new approach of the management following the merger of Škoda with the Volkswagen Group. He and his wife brought up four children and now they get to spend time with 11 grandchildren. They were living together in Vrchlabí in 2023. We were able to record the witness’s story thanks to support from the ŠKODA AUTO Endowment Fund.