Vladimír Zedník

* 1930

  • "There was always food, but the truth is that there was a shortage of meat and you had to travel for food... My mother was from Všetaty. So sometimes she went to Všetaty and there, for example, among the acquaintances she went to school with, she exchanged I don't know… she returned with a goose. But it was perhaps only twice during that time of the protectorate because there were guards on the borders of Prague, and when food was secretly transported like this outside a normal store, you were punished with deportation to concentration camp and death. So it wasn't that easy. "

  • "My mother had a brother, Václav, who lived in Prague and worked as a shoemaker in the company Ťop ťop in Vysočany. They made a patriotic party there, but they were uncovered and somebody denunciated them. He was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Buchenwald, where he sadly died."

  • "In the factory, the political situation practically collapsed. I know our factory had about 2,200 workers, so I remember. Yeah? It was just a full yard. And now he started saying that the children wouldn't solve the situation for us and I don't know what, so they just booed him off stage. We booed him off there- I was already there, and I must admit, it was beautiful. And you could see how frustrated he was. He came to ČKD Lokomotivka (or Sokolovo it was then) to win and gain support, and he was beaten terribly."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 08.01.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:49:15
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
  • 2

    Praha, 23.01.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 45:51
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

We accompanied Štěpán perfectly

Current photography of Vladimir Zednik
Current photography of Vladimir Zednik
zdroj: PNS

Vladimír Zedník was born on February 22, 1930 in Prague-Libno. His father worked as a sales representative for Papírcentrum, his mother was a housewife. Vladimír attended a primary school in Palmovka and then attended a grammar school near the Libeň chateau. In 1941, Vladimír‘s father died suddenly, suffering from angina pectoris for a long time. His mother‘s brother Wenceslas was taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp for his patriotic activities, where he died. Vladimir himself experienced a house search during the Heydrichiad. Before the end of the war, he joined the Higher Industrial School in Smíchov and after its completion, he was accepted into the ČKD in 1948 as a designer - clerk. Thanks to his profession, he got as a service escort of locomotives abroad - for example to the Soviet Union, India or Iraq. Although the communist regime considered the ČKD factory to be its showcase, the witness never became a communist. On November 23, he was personally present when the workers from ČKD booed the then chairman of the Prague organization of the Communist Party, Miroslav Štěpán. He remained working in ČKD until his retirement. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he became a representative of the city district of Prague 9 for two terms. He advocated, for example, the construction of the Kolben Memorial. His lifelong hobbies include flute, football and philately. He lived in Vysočany at the time of making of the interview (2009).