Josef Mlynář

* 1950

  • "At the time, she resisted to join the cooperative. She said it was okay when I helped. She didn't want to sign in. I remember one man from Polička, who joined. He was old and strange. And he was really angry with my mother. He said that the bread was expensive because she didn't want to sign in."

  • "It was two camps. It was a completely different mood, that it was all loosing. We were supposed to form the front of the May Day parade. I know that at that time we got the Czech and Russian flags, with Engels and Marx. Bearded old men on sticks. We were supposed to carry them at the head of the parade. We lined up in front of the school and we were supposed to go and pass it on to other schools. But we threw it into the bush and we only went with the Czech flags. Some were happy about it and others were furious but nothing got investigated."

  • "Every time the carpenters were finished, the wood was covered with branches so that it wouldn't shine, and they transported it at night. And then he found something. My uncle Červený had to go to the woods. There was one warden who wanted to become the main forester but he never succeeded. A younger fellow came and took the position. The forester tried to talk him out of it – not to make any troubles. But everyone knew. So they pushed my mother to sign the papers to join the unified agriculture cooperative – they would otherwise sew her for the theft of socialist property. The property was ours, but we were not allowed to take it."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Polička, 27.09.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 02:29:02
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I was born a class enemy and I will die like one

Josef Mlynář at the end of the 1960s
Josef Mlynář at the end of the 1960s
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Josef Mlynář was born on 6 December 1950 in the settlement of Dědek near Polička. A day before he was born, his father Josef died, and his widowed mother Marie took care of the family farm, which was sought by the local Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD). She resisted the pressure until 1959, when, apparently under the threat of accusation of wood theft, she signed up to join the cooperative. For many years, her little son Josef was a great support for her. He inherited his love for horses from his ancestors. In September 1965, after completing primary school, he entered the vocational school in Jaroměř in the field of blacksmith - farrier. He was then employed at the collective farm in Borová, where he worked in a workshop, and was later entrusted with the care of a traditional horse breed called the Czech-Moravian Belgian. After 1991, he started a private business and rented a forge in Borová, which he later tried. The restitution dispute lasted eleven years and appealed to the International Court of Justice in Geneva. Josef Mlynář worked for twenty years in the Borová Municipal Council. After retiring, he continued to farm and breed horses with his sons. Since 1999, he has traditionally organized the Forman Day in Borová, where he still lived at the time of filming (September 2020).