The Germans wouldn’t let me go to school, I had two years of holidays
Download image
Jaromír Chrástek was born on 7 March 1929 in Brno, but his family lived in Poštorná, a village near Břeclav. After the declaration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Břeclav region was part of the German Reich and the family had to cross the border when travelling to the Protectorate. Jaromír Chrástek entered a German school until the fourth grade. He did not speak German and the teacher did not speak Czech. Both of his parents were from the Protectorate, so the Germans did not allow Jaromír Chrástek to go to school after he finished primary school. In the years 1943-1945 he stayed at home, where he read diligently and supplemented his education in the Czech language by reading. He remembers the bombing of Břeclav in November 1944 and the liberation by the Red Army in April 1945. After the end of the war, he entered the trade academy in Břeclav, where he graduated in 1949. From 1951 to 1953 he was in the army in Nýrsko in southern Bohemia. After his marriage in 1958 he moved to Mikulov, but because of his desire to have his own home, the couple moved to Kaplice in South Bohemia. They lived there for about ten years and experienced the occupation in the August 1968 there. After August 1968, Jaromír Chrástek resigned from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which prevented his career advancement and he had to return to Mikulov, where he worked on a state farm until his retirement. The cadre’s judgement was also reflected in the educational opportunities of his daughter Hana, who could not go to pedagogical school. In 2025 Jaromír Chrástek lived in Mikulov.
