Karel Špala

* 1919

  • "It was the first radio, we had no electricity only until in 1947. I was running the errands at the time, and when it was lit, as they say, I was in the army, two months back then. So I wasn't even there. So only Tuháček had a radio working with batteries and we went there during the war to listen to Masaryk from America. They had to cut long waves out of it, I think, then, but again there were amateurs who were able to make a device for it to be used there. We had to listen to it like this, half the village used to go there, if someone had reported us, they were executing people for it back then."

  • "And during the war, we used to go illegally. We went for... he was building in Ohař, at that time he was supporting poultry, raising chickens, so he started building a poultry farm there. And he had it under construction, so we used to go dancing there. I don't know how it happened, no poster anywhere, nothing anywhere, there was music, we got together and immediately started dancing there."

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    Mirovice, 19.02.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 01:38:42
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

They did not introduce electricity to us until 1947

Karel Špala in 1925
Karel Špala in 1925
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Karel Špala was born on December 30, 1919 in Boješice near Mirovice. As a little boy, he helped his parents in the farm. In 1934 he finished the elementary school in Mirovice and once a week he attended a secondary school in Březnice for two years. He remembers that from his neighbor who had a radio he learned about the occupation of the republic by German troops in March 1939. In 1940, his mother died of tuberculosis. In April 1945 he got married at the chateau in Mirotice; a few days later, the Americans carried out a large raid on Mirotice. On May 10, 1945, he witnessed the arrival of American and later Soviet troops in Mirovice, and heard the firing on Slivice. In 1947 he was in the war for two months, in the 1950s he joined the farm with a single agricultural cooperative. He worked in the agricultural department at the National Committee in Lety and Mirovice. In 1965, he completed his education at the Secondary Agricultural Technical School in Písek in the field of grower - breeder. He retired in 1980. He has been a widower since 2002, and he and his wife had two daughters, Maria and Hana. Karel Špala still lives in his birth house in Boješice and is the oldest citizen of the village.