Ladislav Císař

* 1942

  • "I remember the eviction of one farmer, at that time a machine tractor station was already operating, and since Mr. Straka could not have some people as employees, he did not have time to cultivate the field himself, so he hired a machine tractor station to mow his grain. A tractor driver came to him with a binder, of course there were no combine harvesters at that time, and he ran into a pile of stones somewhere in the field and said that it was sabotage, that he destroyed the self-binder there, and Mr. Straka was evicted for that."

  • "To this friend Jaroslav Císař, a wholesaler and manufacturer from Německý Brod, Horní street number seven, I dedicate all copyrights and publication rights to my literary piece of work. Winter in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Legally, unreservedly and free of charge, without entitlement to cigarette stubs and other social and material benefits that would result to me today and in the future. In proof of this, I am attaching my own handwritten signature with a clear conscience. Zdeněk Matěj Kuděj from Malkov, located in Radostovice. The witness was J. Zach.'

  • "I myself explain Čenek's death in this way, because I probably heard from aunt Zdenka that Čenek got the property from his parents and he promised his mother that he would take care of the other siblings. Also, all the time, if he could, he took care of them by employing them. Everyone made a living around those companies, and when he suddenly lost the companies and found out that he couldn't keep his promise, he simply couldn't take it and took his own life."

  • "She died of cancer. I think it was also a result of the nervous tension she experienced. Because when we were forced to leave Tasice, we moved here to Brod, and my father immediately went to the hospital, where, as I said, he died in 1946, my mother stayed with me and, of course, took care of money and everything. So one thing after another, she simply fell ill and died in the year fifty-seven.'

  • "Weapons that were used during the May fighting were hidden in the factory, and some of them were also handed over to partisan groups. He carried out various acts of sabotage in supplies intended for the German army, such as, for example, after an agreement with Colonel Vltavsky and Doctor Kremla, the supply of triangular glass prisms for tank periscopes was sabotaged very effectively. Uncle Čenek bribed agent 'A' with large sums of money, who ended up doing our illegal group a great service. Agent 'A' was shot by the Gestapo in the woods during his arrest."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Havlíčkův Brod, 06.09.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:20:09
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Havlíčkův Brod, 18.09.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 46:17
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Story of the glass making Císař family

Ladislav Císař (*1942) on the roof of a house in Havlíčkův Brod. In the fall of 1945, they were forced to leave the glassworks in Tasice.
Ladislav Císař (*1942) on the roof of a house in Havlíčkův Brod. In the fall of 1945, they were forced to leave the glassworks in Tasice.
photo: Ladislav Císař archive

Ladislav Císař was born on February 12, 1942 in Tasice near Ledec nad Sázavou. His father worked as a site administrator in the local glassworks owned by his brother Čeněk Císař. At the end of the war, the family was suspected of collaboration. In the fall of 1945, after the Císař brothers’ property was nationalized, the family was moved to Havlíčkův Brod. Just a few months later, his uncle’s suicide followed, then his father’s death, and then when Ladislav was fifteen, his mother died. In 1948, he started elementary school in Havlíčkův Brod and then continued at the Secondary Mechanical Engineering School in Jihlava. After 1960, he worked as a designer at Chotěbořské strojírny, then from 1980 in Havlíčkův Brod at Kamenoprůmysl ŽĎAS and then he retired in 2004. At the beginning of the 1990s, together with his wife, he applied for the return of the property in restitution proceedings. In 2009, after more than fifteen years, the last plots of land were returned to them. In 2019, Ladislav Císař lived with his wife Ludmila in Havlíčkův Brod.