Ladislav Jaworek

"Whether it was an ammonia plant, whether it was a gas station, whether it was a pressure station, everywhere something smelled because it was developed from coke oven gas. The coke oven gas went through the condensing plant and through the gasoline plants and through the various facilities where the derivatives were caught. Tar, ammonia, ammonium sulphate. So there was a different smell everywhere, as they say. The worst was probably on the coke batteries. It was no bed of roses job there either. Because until mechanization came along, for example, when opening doors, and I remember it like today, everything was opened by hand with these keys that were put on. And it was quite physically demanding for those guys."

"We were repairing various machines or preparing infantry. Because there was an infantry system at the army [Coke Plant of the Czechoslovak Army]. There are two systems of coke production. Ostrava had a loose system, Karviná had a ramming system. It was necessary to prepare the ramming machines and various repair work, such as preparing the screens for the sorting plants, preparing the crushers. Simply various works. The more work one went through, the more one knew. I also worked in the chemical plant in the ammonia plant. Wherever they needed us, they'd assign us boys. There were oilers. Even the welder needed a helper. By the war, we were circulating all over the coke plant. And it was the only opportunity to get to know the whole coke plant and learn the most from the older locksmiths."