Vladimír Fassmann

* 1923

  • “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.”

  • “When I was born, there were no water closets yet. We used outhouses. You had to go down from the first floor and out into the yard. It wasn’t until around twenty-eight that they installed water pipes in Rožnov. I remember the maidservant trundling along with the wheelbarrow, the so-called sack barrow. You loaded that up with containers, buckets, and took it to the public pump near to where the assembly house is today. You pumped the water into the buckets, took it home, and then had to carry it up to the first floor. It was hard work.”

  • “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.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, 07.07.2017

    (audio)
    duration: 02:25:55
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Zlín, 01.02.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 02:06:43
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

He was to inherit a brewery. Instead, he unloaded wagons and watched as his property fell into ruin

Malý Vladimír Fassmann dostal štěně, přelom 20. a 30. let 20. stol.
Malý Vladimír Fassmann dostal štěně, přelom 20. a 30. let 20. stol.
photo: archiv pamětníka

Vladimír Fassmann was born on 17 September 1923 in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. He is the son of Heda Málková and Vladimír Fassmann Sr, the owners of the Rožnov brewery, which had been bought in 1912 by his grandmother Countess Anna Kamel of Hardegg and his grandfather Albert Málek, chief brewer in Želetava. After completing grammar school he attended a brewery school in Prague, so he could continue the family tradition and take over the brewery one day, as the only son. During World War II he was forced to pause his studies and work at a paper factory. The Fassmanns were respected in Rožnov, and during the war they helped people with financial problems. In 1949 the brewery was nationalised. The representatives of the state brewery in Přerov threated the widowed Heda Fassmann that if she would not hand over the brewery to them, she would not receive the necessary supplies for production and the brewery would be forced to close down. The witness took up employment at an agricultural cooperative that cultivated grass seeds, which made use of storage in the brewery’s buildings. Initially, he and his mother were threatened with eviction, but in the end they were allowed to stay in their house, which was on the premises of the old brewery. However, they had to pay rent to live in the house they themselves had built. Vladimír Fassmann worked at the grass-seeding station until his retirement. In 1994 he obtained the dilapidated estate of the former brewery by restitution. He passed it on to his grandson Tomáš Kupčík, who rebuilt the brewery and also added a spa, two restaurants, and a chocolate workshop.