Lubomír Burdych

“There were places where the mining was done by so-called cutters which cut into the rock. These machines had an extended part about two or three metres long and there was a chain with steel cogs running around it. This machine was used to dig under a layer of coal or rock. It had to be made from high-quality steel and it was able to cut some two or three metres deep. When the rock had been freed from the bottom, we were breaking it with jackhammers and throwing the pieces onto so-called trough conveyors. The pieces ought not to be too big, but we were glad when we managed to break them into pieces about the size of a coffee table. It was dangerous for the other workers, too, because if something got stuck, it could press a man against the wall and crush his legs or something like that.”

“It was a very demanding work and they had to work incredibly hard. It meant that they had to get up at around 1 a.m. No kidding! From 1 a.m. till the morning they were baking, they produced at least three full ovens. Around seven or eight the baker had to load the bread into the wagon. Usually he had a horse-driven wagon. He was delivering bread to the surrounding villages and towns so that people would have fresh bread and other baked goods. My father would go from Studnice, which is about seven or eight kilometers from Náchod, in the direction of Ratibořice. He would call on all his customers on the way. The furthest he went was Velké Poříčí.”

“It was not easy in some parts of the shaft. It was terribly hot in some places, and at the same time there was very bad air and very little oxygen. Air was being supplied there through wide tin pipes. Sometime we would stand near the outlets and stick our noses in there so that we could breathe at least some fresh air.”

“After the first year of school I was sent to do forced labour in what is now the Rubena factory in Náchod, which was called Kudrnáč at that time. That was where I learnt what the real work was about. I worked on the assembly line which produced gas masks for wehrmacht. I noticed a man, about thirty years old, who was coming there. Everybody treated him with courtesy and the work tempo suddenly increased whenever he appeared there. The man was young Mr. Kudrnáč, the son of the factory owner. They addressed him as if he had an engineering college degree, but in reality he was just a factory production manager. He stopped by and asked me: ´Who are you? What school did you study?´ I answered him. He told me to leave the assembly line, go to the laboratory and report for work there.”

“Looking at it from the individual’s point of view, at that time it looked quite different than what people say now. Frankly speaking, all the parties behaved quite unashamedly. Or at least it seemed so to me. They were not able to articulate their ideas and demands precisely and they focused too much on the competition against one another.”