They brought dad into the dancing hall in the middle of the party and closed the door so that no one could leave. And before they tortured him, they told him to take off his shoes, that he wouldn’t need them anymore.
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Richard Husch was born on July 26, 1930 into a mixed marriage (his mother came from a Jewish family, his father was a Hungarian German). The parents ran a hand embroidery business in Hroubovice u Skutče, where the family lived. They were arranging orders and drove them to the surrounding villages to women embroiderers. After the German occupation, his father was forced to divorce his Jewish wife. He did not do it. He saved his wife Hedvika from the transportation. Nevertheless, in 1944 they both had to go to labor camps, the mother to Hagibor, the father to Bystřice near Benešov. Their 4 children (Richard and three younger sisters) were left alone in Hroubovice and were looked after by a secretary Mrs. Černohorská. After the end of the war, Johann Husch returned to Hroubovice, but was immediately captured by the local partisans and publicly tortured and murdered after two days. The Husch family’s property and the house where the national committee settled were confiscated. Hedvika’s mother managed to get investigation and exhumation after years. Some of the perpetrators were convicted, but were not punished. The Huschs still had big problems. Neither Richard nor his sisters could study and they found employment with great difficulties. Richard finally settled in the Chroustovice collective farm, where he also got an apartment for work. He got married and had two children. He currently lives in a nursing home in Luže. All his life he has been trying to clear his father’s name and return the family property.
