Jaroslav Hrbáč

* 1937

  • "Those were the checks, do you understand? We also disagreed with the entry of Russian troops. We went to the factory on foot in the year 1969, for example, which was challenging at that time. And normally, when there was a monthly factory meeting, there were always those careerists who wanted to get into those positions, who joined the party or were in the party so we were always automatically in conflict with them. That's how it escalated gradually. Then, after 1970, the tough checks began according to the government resolution. And the representative of the union was there. There was also the chairman of the party, the chairman of the commission, and the chairman of the party from that group, and they asked such questions. If you disagreed with them, you were either kept in the same position or transferred one grade lower."

  • "In production management, we were was a young generation, I was in my thirties at the time, and they were already five, six or ten years before retirement, so they ruled. When the so-called Prague Spring came, yes, they encouraged it indeed. You have freedom, so you can ask for what you want, and so on. I always told them, 'Please be so kind, yes, we are not the kind of people you can treat however you please. And even though there is a democracy, democracy yes, but you can not deal with people like this,' and so on. So I was mocking him, even though he was the chairman of the regional organization, in short, a Horňácko rebel."

  • "There were no prospects for me. That's how badly they treated me back then. In short, if someone wanted to hire me to a workshop or as a master or, God forbid, a foreman (that would be a higher position), one organization would always say, 'Yes, we want him, we'll take him,' but those who were supposed to let me in said, 'No.' So I had to keep doing what I was doing but in the lower class. So they simply played with me as much as they needed. Back then, after that, there were already new cadres... Then in a few years, I got lucky, it wasn't until 1981 that he came to see me – at that time there were so-called nomenclature cadres, and one of those cadres came to see me, I won't name him – asking if I would advise him on his diploma and tell him something about production management."

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    Brno, 06.05.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:57:36
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
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After 1968 I had no prospects whatsoever

Jaroslav Hrbáč, 1960
Jaroslav Hrbáč, 1960
photo: Witness archive

Jaroslav Hrbáč was born on August 11, 1937, as the youngest of three siblings in Hrubá Vrbka, where he completed elementary school. His parents were small farmers. In nearby Uherský Brod, he apprenticed to be a machine fitter. The Romanian army liberated his native village. The witness remembers Collectivization, which first affected large farmers in the municipality. His parents joined the agricultural cooperative around the year 1960. At the beginning of the 1960s, the witness joined the Communist Party believing that he and other young people could make a difference in the party. He quit the party after the August occupation in 1968. This decision also had occupational consequences for him – they prevented him from career growth – which lasted until the 1980s. After the Velvet Revolution, he became a production director, which he perceived as a certain satisfaction. Jaroslav Hrbáč comes from a family of musicians, and folklore kept him company throughout his life. In the late 1950s, he won a national music competition. In 2021 he lived in Uherský Brod.