Josef Polišenský

* 1935

  • "Since 1948, 1949, we were used to that there was a celebration of president Masaryk's birthday on March 7, even during the times of president Beneš. The radio wired on March 7, and we usually headed home afterward. It was 1950; we got together and went back home right after the wired speech on Masaryk had ended. We came to school the very next day. Those who left right after the Masaryk's speech were given zero for conduct. Those who stayed and did not come just for the afternoon class received better grades. And so I was given zero for manners, as one of those who left immediately to join the president Masaryk's celebration. We celebrated it and went home as usual, by force of habit. We were not mad at the teacher who gave us the bad grades but at the principal. Nejedlý, the Minister of Education, ordered that. I was outraged that the Minister of Education, professor Zdeněk Nejedlý, was the one who did that. And so we did not get it - he used to praise Masaryk, how could he just turn away like that. He was a weather vane. There were many of them who just flipped-flop. It still holds even today. Where the wind is, there is his cape.“

  • "Dominik Horák was a really good man. During the war, when someone could not deliver the forced delivery, he was the one who would help that man the delivery was ascribed to, so the person would not have to go to jail; because, for this, you could have also been sentenced to a concentration camp. The forced deliveries existed even after the end of the war. However, there was a big turn after 1948. Those he used to help in the past had changed, big communists became out of them, and they disposed of him. Being a Kulak, he had to move out of there. He went to a small house in Bučovice, where someone had a daddy house - kind of an extension to someone's homestead for his old parents. He spent the rest of his days somewhere there.“

  • "How did you bear the shifts at the Border Guard Service? You said that you were afraid you might have had to go close to the borders.“ "I did not want that. Fortunately, I did not get there, as there was probably a mistake in my enrollment. And so, I was part of the brigade's backup tycoon. Apart from the guard service, we served at the ammunition depot, at the barracks – we used to guard a dusting plane there, for example. Or, when the forest was on fire, we had to spend another two days there, in case anything happens. Or, when something rare occurred - when we had to attend the funerals. Of course, many guys had died there. For instance, a guy was in service and had a pistol with him, his girlfriend had sent him a letter - saying she was breaking up with him - and the guy went crazy and shot himself. Another time, a guy would pee on the wires of high voltage current of 500 volts, and it got short-circuited and killed him. Some parts were impregnated, but it varied from time to time. It was turned on around the watchtower during daylight, not at night as they would not see anything there. The border was guarded at night mainly, two people at least.“

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    Brno, 03.12.2019

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
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In every village, there was someone who would follow a regime of any kind - the so-called weathervane.

Josef Polišenský was born on May 30, 1935, in a small rural village named Slížany, located in the Kroměříž region. He grew up in wartime that was very difficult for the villagers, especially as soldiers of several armies were taking turns in Slížany towards the end of the war. And life was not any easy even after the end of the war. Josef joined Sokol and attended the 11th Sokol meeting. By that time, the Communists had taken over already. Even Josef did notice the change of environment, receiving zero for conduct, as he celebrated Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk‘s birthday. The forced collectivization hit Slížany during the 1950s. Josef‘s parents had to enter into the cooperative, and his younger siblings were not allowed to work anywhere else but in the agriculture sector. Josef managed to finish his apprenticeship as a toolmaker at PAL Magneton in Kroměříž and graduated from the evening technical school. At the age of twenty-one, he had to commence a compulsory military service at the Border Guard Service. Josef refused to guard at the border and was assigned to the backup platoon that was located in Cheb. He often accompanied the funerals of other soldiers who had died at the borderline – mostly due to some unfortunate accident. Josef used to work at PAL Magneton in Morkovice. For his entire life, he has been refusing to join any political party and defies himself to people who – in his own words – have collaborated with all kinds of regimes.