Out of what I earned in all those years, I just bought a sewing machine for my wife
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Josef Bednář was born on 4 August, 1930 in Olšany near Prostějov. He apprenticed a vulcanizer and together with his uncle he wanted to set up a licencing trade. At that time the communist party ruled the country without any limits, which publicly opposed any business undertaking. Therefore Josef Bednář and his uncle did not manage to open their business. Moreover his undertaking efforts were the reason he was sent to the auxiliary technical troops (PTP) in 1951. He worked in the mines of Kladno region for twenty-seven months. In the whole time he got just a single permission to visit home, despite the fact he had a wife and a small son waiting there for him. For five years he worked as a truck driver in ČSAD and then as a repairman in the local spa. Following the divorce with his wife in 1971 he moved to Prague, where he worked as a driver and a repairman at the Philosophical Institute; then until retirement he worked as a caretaker and a repairman in the Economic Institute of the Czechoslovak Science Academy. Then he returned to o Slatinice, where he lived in 2018.
