Jan Blizňák

"I had a contract at the glassworks in Karolinka. I even went there to see where I would live, where I would learn how to blow glass. They showed me around. But then things went wrong when the Tatra arrived to our home. It was a Tatraplan “eight”, three men got out, called my mother, and told her to send me to mining apprenticeship on 31 August 1957. They must have threatened her in some way because she was completely broken up about it. So I left to the mining apprenticeship and from then on I was on my own.

"Because my parents refused to join the local Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD), they were given such a big levy that they had to add to what they harvested, whether it was potatoes, grain, eggs. We didn't harvest the required quantity so we had to buy some more to meet the delivery. But our family had nothing left because my parents were unemployed. When there was nothing left from farming at home, my father said he wouldn't give any more. He stopped making those overstated deliveries, which were not at all in line with reality. Which got him into trouble. He was often called to the local national committee to explain why he was not fulfilling the deliveries. They were also forcing him to join the Cooperative. He was close to be imprisoned. But he was an invalid, and there wasn't much he could do in the quarry, where he probably would ended up. So they didn't harm him, but they sent in tractors that ruined the fields around our house and they took the cattle. That was the end of our farming."