Bedřich Centner

"Then they even came to me when that year was '68 and I was the operations manager, and then it was grinding, right. There were the Dubček's in the factory as officially the Communist Party, and then there were the other ones who won it, and then they were in charge of it, one of them was that Skála. And first a representative of the Dubček's came to me and told me to go to them. I said no, I didn't need it. But after a fortnight, he came from the other group and asked me to sign to join the Communist Party. So I said, "But which Communist Party? Those people were already here to ask me to sign. I don't know which one, I'd rather not join any.' I must admit that my comrades asked me three times to join the Communist Party. And I was so stupid that I didn't do it."

"If a cow was having trouble calving, people would come for my father, even in the middle of the night. My mother didn’t like it. Someone would always knock on the window, saying their cow was calving and asking Mr. Centner to come. One time, he was helping deliver a calf at František Kamenický’s place. Kamenický already had a radio back then and listened to foreign broadcasts. There were four of them helping with the birth, and at midnight, they went inside for coffee or rum. Kamenický turned on the radio and tuned in to a foreign broadcast. In Czech, and in Chvojno just like anywhere else, there were informers. Someone wrote a denunciation letter, claiming that these four—Kamenický, another Kamenický, Václav Centner, and Josef Vejr—were listening to imperialist radio together. At that time, Holice was the district. They were arrested, imprisoned in Holice, and later put on trial. During the trial, Kamenický and Vejr admitted to listening to the radio and were each sentenced to about a year in prison. From our family, my oldest brother Václav attended the trial, and he later told me that when the judge asked our father, ‘Defendant, did you listen to the radio?’ my father cupped his hand behind his ear and replied, ‘What did you say, Your Honor? I don’t understand, I can’t hear you.’ He stood up and walked toward the judge, but there was a guard on each side, so they kept sitting him back down. Apparently, this happened about five times. My brother Venda thought our father must have been acting. But they took him back to his cell, and two days later, they released him and sent him home."

"There was a family of gypsies, the Krpaks, who were settled in Chvojno. They were not nomadic gypsies. And they were tinning boilers. At that time it was a desirable trade. And someone reported it in 1942 that there were gypsies in Chvojno. My father was the mayor at that time, and he wrote back that they were settled inhabitants of Chvojno, no nomads, and that he didn't see why there should be any proceedings against them. Then a letter came from the Pardubice regional government saying that his explanation was not sufficient, so the mayor explained it better. Dad wanted to take his bicycle and go to Pardubice to explain. But my mother was angry that he wouldn't go anywhere because of the gypsies, that they would be sent somewhere and he would be arrested, and that she would be alone with the children. But it was something for dad, he got mad, got on his bike and rode off to Pardubice. He arranged with the regional government that these gypsies were working, they were not vagrants, and indeed the Krpaks stayed in Chvojno throughout the war and survived normally fine."