Mgr. Aleš Fetters

“The Czech grammar school in Trutnov got closed down in 1938. You know, I admire the professors from that year, especially at the end, in September, or in the first days of October 1938. They had to take care of their families, of course, and many went to Úpice, because it was the nearest place, and they managed to move the school there as well, or at least the basic things, I don’t mean the desks, and so on, but the school’s collections. And they moved them to the school Na Lánech in Úpice and they started teaching there. The school there was built in 1932 or 1933. Classrooms for the grammar school were thus set aside in that school building, but the grammar school was closed down soon after, about a year later. And therefore I really admire the people in 1938 who had to take care of their families, but apart from that, they also took care of the school… For instance, in front of the Czech grammar school in Trutnov there was a bust of Alois Jirásek. They transported the statue to Úpice and then in 1945 they returned it back to its original place in front of the school. I know this because other people told me about it. And the private entrepreneurs, too, people who owned lorries – during the couple of days in October 1938, they were driving the cars back and forth between Trutnov and Úpice in order to move the people and the other institutions, there was a Sokol organization, and so on. They had their centre in the National House in Trutnov; the Czech minority had it there even before WWI, the National House was constructed in 1900 or 1901 precisely for this very prominent Czech minority in Trutnov. And during the few days after the border regions had been gradually taken by Germans, all these people had to… you know, recently somebody told me that they did not have to, they went willingly. I replied, well, yes, the Jews went willingly, too, they were ordered to and they had to go, right, or they could have made obstructions, or hang themselves, or whatever else they could do and not go. What would have happened then? What could a Czech professor do in a German town where nothing Czech could stay anymore. You know. And so on.”

“A student festival, well, we organized the festival and it was… the students very actively criticized the unified school system and I don’t know what else and now there was also the second movement, the members of the Socialist Youth Union, who were trying appease everything. We gathered somewhere near the Old Town Square. We were to line up in the town square and during the day they changed the route of the march and so on. That was one of my experiences with the police, with the secret policemen, probably the first one. We had such an idea, inspired by the campaigns like The Youth Leads Brno, and so on, and so I glued a beard made from cotton wool to my chin and I put on a kind of suit and the girls were as if leading me on a leash, and I was, well, the old idiot that I was, I was making jokes such as how well off we pensioners were and people were reacting to it and as we were crossing the Letná Bridge, suddenly there were two gentlemen walking toward us. There was a space between some people and suddenly they grabbed me between themselves and they dragged me to other side and they tore off my fake beard and well, they did not hit me, or at least I don’t remember, but they made some threats to me and then they pushed me back into the crowd. I felt disheartened.”