Vladimír Fassmann

“So I went home. The business was already closed. Because when I had been on holiday - back then I was allowed to go on holiday for ten days excepting New Year’s Ever... in other words, I witnessed just what Mum must have experienced here. They came from Přerov, the chairman of RUM [Revolutionary Union Movement - trans.], the Party leader, and finally the brewer, and: ‘Look, the way it is, you’re a small brewery, and we have the option, seeing that supplies are rationed and we can ensure that you don’t get them. So, if you’d like, we’d be willing to take you over. We’re not pushing you, woman, but think about it. We’ll come, we’ll give you notice.’ Well, and they really did come. On December the twenty-third. A day before Christmas Eve. They said: ‘So here we are, here’s the agreement, if you’re willing to sign it.’ They only wanted the warehouse, to employ Mum as warehouse manager, the brewer as administration, and possibly the driver and some co-driver. I insisted there’d be a bottling line here, production, a bottling plant. They put that into a note. Well, and it was yes or no. Mum, what could she do... The Party had the upper hand. So she signed it. And so the brewery closed down come 1 January 1949.”

“It happened that some wagons would arrive. Back then people still worked on Saturdays, later on Saturdays were cancelled and made into a free day. And the wagons arrived. So the gatekeeper came to me to say there was a wagon there. I had to get into the tractor. I didn’t have any people here on a Saturday, everyone commuted. So my wife, my children helped. It had to be unloaded. So we went to the station, moved it from the wagon to the trailer, brought it here, unloaded it on the ramp, went to get more of the goods. Twice, three times, four times, depending on how big the wagon was. There were times when the goods were heavy. Alfalfa, that made for heavy sacks. Fifty sixty kilos. Just about manageable for me, but not for my wife. Even when using a hand truck, it’s wobbly, and the floor from the wagon to the trailer wasn’t ideal either. It was very strenuous sometimes.”