"While I was reporting myself at the school office in Český Krumlov town, the inspector has told me: ´Look, I have a place for you in Hořice village in Bohemian Forest (you know, that’s where the Passion games are held), you can start as a teacher there. The director of the local school is due to retired in two years so you can become the director then. But if you don’t like big school, you can go to Mokré village by Lipno Lake; there is only one class school, so you can start over there. And to complete the offers I’ll tell you one other school. But I’m not going to send you there and you are not going to pick that one either. It is a school located in the military area full of soldiers...´ and I said: ´That’s all right, I used to be a soldier as well.´ ´It is school full of Romany kids only. The village is full of them. They came there from Slovakia. And the commander of the military station - some attorney Dr. Pohl - decided that the Romany kids have to go to school too. So he and the soldiers rebuilt one local building to a school. The school is already open, but only as a kindergarten. We intend to open also one class of the grammar school now, since the school is already built. Although we know, there’s no point doing that.´ that’s what the inspector said. He told me to sit down and gave me twenty five minutes to make up my mind, where I want to go. It shocked me. I thought, there is nothing in the Czech educational system that might actually surprise me. I used to teach Czech, Slovakian, German and French kids. Also Volhynia Czechs. In my Carlsbad class were also kids from Hungary and Balkan. But this just surprised me. But there it was - Romany kids! The whole school of them! It was fantastic...After twenty five minutes I got up and told him: ´I chose the school in Květušín village.´ And he replied: ´You’re either naive humanist or an idiot. Don’t you know that the Romany kids never go to school? And we couldn’t do anything about the Pohl decision to build the school there...But Ok, when the spring comes, the parents will take their kids and will leave. And then we close the school. But if you decided already, I will send you there. Come back to me in spring and I will send you to any school you’ll pick, because I know, you will have a hard time there now.´"
"They simply came to me in the early 70´s and offered me a job at the Ministry. I told them: ´I’m sorry, you’re waiting for them to throw me out of there in a month, because I’m politically incorrect person. It’s not my kind of work.´ Speaking of which, although I was politically incorrect person, I was being respected for being involved with the Romany issues. Otherwise they wouldn’t have mercy with me. For instance, during the 50´s, I was being called the teacher which was rather a curiosity, because according to the communist regime rules I should have been addressed ´comrade teacher´ instead. The schoolmistresses were Mrs. Teachers. One day, the inspector visited the school. He met some boy running through the hall - probably to the toilet- and asked him: ´Where is comrade director?´ The boy stood there staring at him, because he never heard the word before.´ You mean where is our teacher, right? ´ He spent some time in our class and then he told me off in the office. Then I heard him behind the door telling his colleague who ran off from the office: ´I didn’t want to assist there; I better ran off.´ because we began to shout at each other. I told him: ´You have to understand it at the first place and then we can talk about it. What do you know about the Romany problems? Nothing! And you want to lecture me! I mean something to them! They respect me. I teach them to honor older people and the teachers’ too.´ the result of this was that I have been invited to the Regional national committee to the education section chief. Wise man... I expected him to terminate the employment with me, because I applied for it after I spoke to the inspector. He told me: ´Forget about some inspector. He’s not going back there. Go back and carry on with your work! ´"
"One day, the kids came to school saying: ´Mr. Dědič, we will be leaving soon, because our parents won’t be working here in Květušín village anymore. They said we’ll be better off somewhere else.´ I remember me saying: ´And do you want to go with them? ´Not all kids wanted to leave though. Some of them very saying: ´ We’d rather stay here in school, but our parents will go so we have to go with them.´ that’s how it was. And of course, it was Pohl (the military station commander - editorial note) who was giving them the safe-conducts to quite the work here and leave. When the day D came Pohl called me and told me: ´You go over there, I can’t. I know everyone would argue about me being a fool for building up a school although I have been told that they won’t stay in here, that they will want to leave anyway...´ So I was saying goodbye to everyone for him. And back then I...I didn’t believe that they might come back too. I took for granted that that it is over and the school will be closed now and we will go somewhere else too. But as I was saying good bye to the kids I told them at the end: ´Look kids, if you ever think that it was better here in school than it will be now wherever you’re going to with your parents, I’ll be here waiting for you for the next two weeks.´ After they left, the first thing I did was to go to see the inspector. I told him: ´I promised the kids I’ll wait for them here for two weeks. So if you please, would be so kind and wait two weeks to close the school. I doubt that the kids will come back, but I already promised them. But if they would come back with their parents, it would be such shame...´"
And was the inspector that wise?
"No, he said: ´You’re a naive humanist. But if you promised already, OK. But you have to go help with the baby trees to the woods, to prevent you from being lazy! Because people might say that the teachers are just laying around for two weeks there.´ Of course, nobody cared that we spent the nights, Saturdays and Sundays with the kids. The whole six months, the whole winter, but nobody cared about this...That’s how the politicians saw teachers back then in the 50´s, because they finished only four or five grades themselves, that’s why. And then the unexpected happened - on the twelve day the kids were standing in front of the school, dirty, sad, wearing ripped clothes and slimmer. They were bagging me to keep them in the school as I promised them. And that’s how the breakthrough happened."
"We had an appointment for 3pm or 2pm, I don’t really remember anymore. And since we were there already two hours earlier, we walked around the St. George statue on the courtyard. Then all of a sudden the president Tatra cars lined up there and between them President and his crew stood. I turned to my wife and said: ´I hope he is not about to leave yet, I’d better go there and check! ´ But they told me: ´Are you nuts? You can’t go there just like that.´ I ran over the courtyard. The President was already getting into his car. I ran to him, his guards were frowning at me...I wasn’t holding anything in my hands. So I came to him and said: ´Mr. President, what about the Romany children, do you count on them? ´ He got out of his car and put his arm over my shoulder: ´Good that you came. They never remind me anything and I almost forget about that. We almost left to Lány.´ and I said to my family then: ´See, girls, if I wouldn’t have gone there, we would have missed him! ´ The result of it was that at 3pm everyone who was employed at the Prague Castle gathered in the big hall. It was in the former Children’s house building. Today it is a culture house of the president. Anyway, they all gathered there. We have performed with our ensemble then. When the President and his wife arrived I remember our boys - Lacko and Franta Bandy- wanted to sit right next to them. To them it was a great adventure. I was the one to open the speech. So I started to talk about the establishment of the Children’s home, about its progress, about what the kids looked like when we started and what do they look like today. The all wore khaki summer uniforms; boys wore shorts and the girls wore the skirts. They sang the whole program. Of course they received a huge ovation at the end. No matter if people like the singing or not...Of course, they liked it, the kids were great. When it was over, the President came talked to the kids. That was the moment, when he said: ´Where are you from, kids?´ ´We’re from Dobrá Voda village.´ ´But I don’t know where it is Dobrá Voda. There are few villages called like this. Which is the nearest town there? ´ The kids started to shout: ´Husinec town, Husinec town.´ And Mr. President asked them: ´And why is Husinec such famous town, what every Czech knows? ´ Irena Veszpremiu answered masterfully: ´There is a train station.´ the whole hall broke into laugh. The President changed the subject and said: ´Who is the best runner of you, kids? ´ Everyone agreed: ´It’s Tonda!´ Tonda Horvath rose up. Everyone was laughing, because Tonda Horvath and the President was Antonín (informally Tonda - translator’s note) too and they stood there next to each other...When we will on our way home I told the kids: ´So, kids, do you believe now, that you can be home here? That you don’t have to feel like you’re living abroad? ´ ´Yes, we believe it now.´"
„It was in 1952, so I was considering whether to take the kids there or not. The cultivation of Romany kids was so miserable back then. The compulsory attendance wasn’t being obeyed yet. These things are not known today. The kids were going to school only if their parents sent them. Of course, if the parents brought their kids to school, no one would send them away, nobody would even think about that. On the other hand, if the kid didn’t come to school it was normal to think: ´They’re Gypsies, they don’t go to school.´ this misery last almost until the 60´s. It was my intention to talk about this problem at all conferences I attended and I wanted to demonstrate it on this trip too. And that’s why I was considering going to Slovakia now, because I was well aware of the fact, that the worse problem is in Slovakia. And it is still, today. I arranged things on the Ministry, they agreed immediately. They supported us and even grant us ten thousand Czech coronas for that. We spent almost forty five thousand corona, because this was a month trip with bus across the Slovakia. So I went to Bratislava town to the Interior Ministry. There was some Dr. Čičmanec who discussed the most needed places with me. He told be about the worse regions. I wanted to convinced the population - Gypsies most of all - that this situation is not unbeatable destiny, I wanted them to realized that if they will send their kids to school, they will soon look like the kids they see in front of them now. And I also wanted to convince the non-Romany population that these people, living next to them are even. They just are not educated, but other than that their even. So there is need for them to cultivate themselves."
Full recordings
1
Chlumany u Vlachova Březí, okres Prachatice, 24.10.2006
Mr. Miroslav Dědič, Ph.D. was born on August 30th 1925 in Čtyři Dvory town in České Budějovice region. After the war he worked as a teacher. He was assigned to the borderland villages where he taught uneducated German children, and children who had been relocated after the war. In 1950 he accepted the opportunity to teach Romany children in a newly built school in Květušín village, located in the middle of the military area Boletice. The school had been renewed on the initiative of the commander of the local military station, Capt. Josef Pohl. Dedic found that the Romany students, who came originally from the Eastern Slovakia, did not show any interest in learning. Eventually, he managed to ingratiate himself by introducing the children to activities such as playing soccer and the violin, and ensuring that they all had adequate living conditions and food supplies. In the spring of 1951 the Romany families decided to leave Květušín village, which would have shut down the school. But, most of the children escaped their parents, and after twelve days of travelling, returned to ´their teacher´. The school then continued as a boarding school. Mr. Dědič preached the importance of this boarding type of education, because he was convinced that the separation of the kids from the poor conditions of their families would help them learn and grow more effectively. This so-called ´Peaceful School´, and Dedic’s style of teaching became very famous. The State political, cultural and media services recognized the school. Miroslav Dědič encouraged these interests further by taking his kids on field trips across Czechoslovakia. A singing and dancing Slovakian tour was held in 1953. In the same year the school was moved to a bigger building in Dobrá Voda u Záblatí village in Prachatice region and it started to function as the Children’s home. Unfortunately, this institution has been abandoned by the higher authorities in 1960, because the leaders of the former regime considered the ´Romany question´ solved. Mr. Miroslav Dědič remained active in the Romany enlightenment issue though. In 1964 he started to work at the Regional Educational Institute in České Budějovice. In 1967 he worked in the Pedagogy and Psychology department of the Institute. When the Educational Section for Romany Children and Youth was created, Miroslav Dědič became its director. He remained in this position until he retired in 1986. Besides his school activities he was also member of the Romano líl magazine editorial board. He participated on the SC-R (Association of Romany’s and Gypsies) until 1973. Today, he lives in Chlumany village in the Prachatice region. He is still actively lecturing about the national minority, (mainly Romany), issues at the University of South Bohemia. He is an author of several subject publications as well as a few fictitious projects. The Phenomenon of the Květušín village school was often mentioned in literature, (´Captain’s Kohl children - written by J Štycha), and in a movie, (´Run, who are you afraid´ - directed by Dušan Klein, screenplay by Josef Pohl).
