Oldřich Rosůlek

* 1941

  • "The commanders stationed us in a field with sheaves. ‘Put on your bayonets! We have a report of a German family with two children escaping. You will stick a bayonet into each bundle in the row from all sides. See if anyone is there,' they said. That's when I realised I was going to stick the bayonet in and maybe stab the children. So, I just pretended to do that. To this day, I don't know if anybody was there. There was nobody in my row. I played like I was stabbing a bundle and I didn't stab anything. But somebody turned me in."

  • "I remember very well how my father organized the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. The Kynžvart barracks are imprinted in my memory. The Sudeten Germans were gathered in those barracks. My father led me there by the hand. I was about five or six years old before the expulsion. I remember that the German women had frightened children around them. They had scarves tied to their buns and they were washing clothes on the washboard. These children were very frightened. I wanted to give them some candy. I was a kid myself, so I wanted to play with them. They didn't want to, like they were scared. There was such a great hatred of the Germans. Strong anti-German sentiment."

  • "The American soldiers took us into the tanks and showed us the parts. They told us what all the tachometers were for and so on. They rode with us around the buildings in Pilsen, in Slovany, in Stromovka. They loaded children and girls under twenty into the jeep. They drove us to Bolevák. It was hot weather then. We bathed there. They always lined us kids up, and when we swam on further, they whistled at us. Mostly they held us in their arms and waved us around in the water. Then they brought us back again. They took everybody to their flats. We each got a little package, a dark case. There were gum, chocolates, frozen raisins and oranges in the compartments. We always brought a treat like that."

  • "I was alone in the gamekeeper's lodge. I got up early in the morning, about four o'clock, so I turned on the radio. I thought I'd lie down, so I turned on the news. Suddenly I heard an alarm voice saying that Warsaw Pact troops had entered. So, I woke up about five o'clock and I was all sleepy-eyed and I gaped. It was a blow. I took my bike and rode to Pilsen. My bike got lost somewhere later. The hell with it. I was in the square, where it was already a chaos. We talked to the Russian soldiers and were trying to convince them that there was no counter-revolution here. Then I was at the radio station and the town hall, which we defended with bodies so that the officers couldn't enter. The next day we were again at the bonfire in front of the Czech radio station and some women brought us tea and cakes. Then I went home to Druztová, where I collected signatures against the occupation and handed them in at the radio station. It was a blow."

  • "The first truck with a big five-pointed star drove into the square. It was probably the UNRRA. When the crowds were cheering and my mother had a bouquet of flowers, she was an enthusiastic member of Sokol, and was throwing them at the Americans, suddenly there was a burst of gunfire. Some fanatical German was shooting at people from the top of the church. Everybody ran."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Plzeň, 08.10.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 01:47:25
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
  • 2

    Plzeň, 23.08.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 47:42
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
  • 3

    Plzeň, 03.10.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:29:56
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
  • 4

    Plzeň, 04.10.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:09:35
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The communists did not trust us

Oldřich Rosůlek in 1960s
Oldřich Rosůlek in 1960s
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Oldřich Rosůlek was born on 12 July 1941 in Pilsen, where he lived to see the liberation of the American army. However, he did not stay long in the West Bohemian city. Already in November 1945 the family moved to Kynžvart, where they replaced the displaced Germans. After the communist takeover in February 1948, the parents faced problems. Mainly because of their contacts with their relative Vlasta Veselá, a former inter-brigadist and later victim of political monstrosities. The communists in Kynžvart did not trust the Rosůlek family and everything culminated in their forced eviction from the town in 1955. At that time, at his father‘s request, he began to train as a porcelain painter. But he was always attracted by nature. After a year he left his studies and went to work in the forest. Later he graduated from the forestry school in Trutnov. However, he still had to do compulsory military service, which he did in the Cheb region with the border guards. In 1968 he started working as a forester in Druztová. The August occupation of the Warsaw Pact troops caught him there. He therefore went to Plzeň, where he defended the radio building with his body. After that he gave up politics and devoted himself to his hobbies. In 1989, he signed the manifesto A Few Sentences (Několik vět). He was in Prague during the Velvet Revolution. Later he sat on the municipal council in Druztová, where he still lives in 2021.