Vladimír Fejfar

* 1930

PTP (Auxiliary Technical Battalions)
27. 5. 1942 - Assassination of R. Heydrich, 8. 5. 1945 - End of WWII, 25. 2. 1948 - Communist coup d‘état in ČSR, 30. 5. 1953 – 3. 6. 1953 – The monetary reform and subsequent public upheaval, 21. 8. 1968 - Invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops
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    Room-mate

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    “Pepík was older than us and he was a bit strange. He worked in Vysočany and on principle he always walked all the way to work. On Sunday evenings he would arrive from home with a suitcase full of baked sweet buns, and he managed to live on them for the entire week. He did not know pubs, he knew nothing, just work. He would always come back late in the evening when we were already in beds, he would take a sweet bun, eat it and go to bed. His blanket was so worn that he had difficulties to cover himself properly so that he would not suffer from cold. In the morning he would always get up before dawn and go to work. One day we reset his alarm clock. We waited until he fell asleep, and we set the alarm clock to midnight. The alarm clock rang, Pepík did not look at it at all, he got dressed and off he went. After some time he returned and as soon as he opened the door, he shouted at us: ‘You scoundrels! You villains!’ When he calmed down after a few days, we asked him: ‘Pepík, so how was it?’ He told us: ‘I walked all the way to the factory’s gatehouse, and the guard stared at me as if I was a ghost. Only then I realized that you tricked me.’”

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    End of his father's career in 1948

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    “Then there was the year 1948 and problems came. Only communists were elected to the action committees. Since Bělohrad is a small town, everyone who had passed more than a higher elementary school then became marked as a capitalist and reactionary. It hit my father as well. At first he was dismissed from his position and he had to begin working as a cashier. Shortly after he was transferred and he had to commute to work to Dobruška, I think. Eventually he was fired from the job.”

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    No problems due to the Auxiliary Technical Battalions

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    “Nobody has ever asked me about the Auxiliary Technical Battalions. Not a single time in my life! Only after I had retired I spoke about it with one friend: ‘Péťa, I had been in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions, and nobody ever noticed and I did not have problems at all. I even worked in the state administration office. How could that be possible?’ He said: ‘We obviously knew about it, but we did not want to cause problems to you.’ This friend was a former member of the Communist Party and he had been in the committee. But he was simply no crook and he had kept this information to himself.”

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    Hradec Králové, 20.03.2015

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Nobody has ever asked me about the Auxiliary Technical Battalions since my military service, only after the Velvet Revolution

Vladimír Fejfar
Vladimír Fejfar
photo: Pamět národa - Archiv
photo: Pamět národa - Archiv
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Vladimír Fejfar was born November 24, 1930 in Lázně Bělohrad. He followed in his father’s footsteps and he studied the well-known trade academy in Hořice. Immediately after graduation in 1950 he began working in the Avia company in Prague-Letňany as an administrative clerk. In October of the following years he was drafted to do the compulsory military service and since he was regarded as politically untrustworthy due to his family origin he was sent to work in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions. After completing the basic training his unit was transferred to Ostrava to work in coal mines. Vladimír returned to civilian life after two and a half years. He was released under the condition that he would work in construction or in mining industry for at least two years. Vladimír thus began working in the company Severostav. He later changed jobs many times and has worked as a taskmaster on construction sites. He also worked at the construction of the military recreation center in Špindlerův Mlýn, in the finance department of the regional administration authority, in the planning department of the district administration authority or in the municipal transport company. In 1968 he signed a petition protesting against the entry of the Soviet army to Czechoslovakia. He never faced any problems due to his former assignment in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions.

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