Through the silent stream of the crowd
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Bohumil Homola was born in the community of Svachov (a part of the Svatý Jan nad Malší municipality) near České Budějovice on 29 March 1929 as the third of four siblings. His elder sisters’ names were Drahomila and Milada and his younger brother’s name was Oldřich. Mother Božena gave birth to Drahomila when she was just 16 years old, which is why she had to obtain legal capacity prematurely in order to marry distiller Bohumil Homola. He was entrusted with the management of a small distillery in Svachov in South Bohemia in 1928, and the family relocated there. Svachov is where Bohumil and his siblings spent their childhood, which he remembers very fondly. They would stay outdoors from dawn to dusk, enjoying the beauty of South Bohemian landscapes. Having completed primary school, Bohumil wanted to study technology, but his father would not allow this because he did not want to bear the cost of his sustenance. He recommended his son to find a factory job in Velešín. The plant was under the Nazi management in 1944, manufacturing various components for military equipment. Late in 1944, Bohumil secretly applied for studies at a newly opened technical high school in Písek. This is where he witnessed the arrival of the US Army at the end of World War II. He successfully passed his school-leaving examination in 1948. Immediately after that, he left for Prague and joined Tesla Hloubětín as a designer. Tesla manufactured broadcasting equipment and light bulbs at the time. In 1949, he joined Avia Čakovice, an aviation manufacturing company at the time, as a designer and aircraft engine inspector. He stayed with the company until retirement in 1989. Following the war, his father faced pressure on the part of a local communist party official who wanted to take his position at the distillery. Matters eventually escalated when the father was arrested by the people’s guard on the pretext of having trafficked young people to Kaplice in the American occupation zone. He spent three months in jail in Kaplice and was forced to work in a local quarry. He came back home in poor health and suffered a stroke in 1952. His third stroke, which he suffered in 1954, left him paralysed; he died in 1963. Bohumil met his future wife at work in 1948 and the couple married in 1950. Their only daughter Eva was born in 1952. Having witnessed the communist regime ruining his father’s life, Bohumil Homola did not want to get involved in any public affairs and focused almost exclusively on his job and family. In 1964, he successfully completed his mechanical engineering studies at the Brno University of Technology, specialising in aviation technology. He spent his entire professional career at Avia Čakovice. He was living in Prague at the time of recording. He died on 9 October 2023.
