Jaroslav Fojt

Just imagine how we felt when the twenty of us, who had never been to a mine before, were now supposed to spend three years there. They wanted to break these people, but they didn’t. For example Sternberg was there for five years. He was somewhat older than the rest of us, so he managed to communicate with them, and maybe that's why he worked the excavator on the surface. His father worked as the janitor at their castle and people accepted him. Once, there was a fire in the castle that used to belong to Sternbergs and so he wanted to go home to have a look at it. He came to the commander and said he needs a vacation: “Sternberg to Šternberk”. The officer couldn’t understand it at all. So such debates were taking place there as the guards were really stupid.

I was in one bedroom with count Sternberg. He was the oldest one of his siblings who stayed, while the rest went abroad. Even though he couldn’t control the property, he was supposed to look after it somehow. His father was a castle manager and people liked the whole family. Sternberg was such a clean-cut man that when we were in trouble, he always managed to resolve it. Even some of the officers respected him. But the account in Švandrlík's film stating that he was in a quarry is not true. He always worked with an excavator on the surface of the shaft. When he was released after five years, he couldn’t find a job because nobody wanted to hire him. His friends helped him to get o job as a stage technician in the Karlín theater. Now people finally recognize him, he was awarded with medal from Klaus. Now he only has some trouble with handling the property, he has to hire people for that. He was a really great guy.

Švandrlík invented humorous things in his Černí baroni (Black Barons), so the readers think: What did they miss? It is true that we were earning something, but the army had a deal with the mines and billed them for our work. Our salary was cut by 90 crowns daily for accommodation, clothing and so on. So we effectively paid everything for ourselves. If you earned five thousand crowns, they put half of it on accommodation and divided the other half: they put one half to your savings book and only the last bit went to you. So we actually got just a couple of crowns. And the money we saved was devalued by the currency reform. But how could you enjoy yourself with the money? Of course, we would go to Ostrava for parties and we lived as young boys. The bottom line is, we were gaining some money, we were employed, but there was no freedom! Because they really treated us horribly.

The Communists took all of our fields and gave it to their people. When I came there, I couldn’t even go to our garden and pick some plums. I was already an enemy of the people. When I joined the army in Chomutov, they cut my hair and sent me to Cheb, where they classified us. Then they sen me to Hrdlovka near Most to mines. Until then, I never saw a mine before. And all of a sudden, we started going down the shaft. In 1950, it was in Rubín; then, in the middle of the year, we moved to Karviná on Ostrava mine. We had to work in the shafts as PTP was divided into light and heavy. The light ones worked in construction. We worked in mines and quarries. I can tell you that it created a really strong bond among us and we meet until today. There used to be sixty thousands of us and now we are only five thousand, but we still meet. It all changed when general Čepička and other came in power and wanted to break these people. We didn’t have a lot of chances to revolt as we were constantly working shifts; in the morning, in the afternoon, during the night, for two and a half years. The guards treated us terribly, simply as if we were the enemies of the people. Usually there were old commanders or those who were totally uneducated. In these years, we created firm bonds among us. There was no bullying as it happens in military service. We helped each other. Now it was only important to get out of there. Among others, there was also count Sternberg and many other great people who were fired from universities, and then mostly farmers (kulaks). We worked there in the shafts that were too dangerous or not prosperous enough and regular miners would not work there, so they forced us to do the job. And we were learning by practicing. Often, we were even covered up down there.