To this day, I am a proud graduate of the Baťa’s school of work
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Jindřich Káňa was born on February 1, 1923 in Petřvald, Silesia. His family was affected by the global economic crisis in the early 1930s. Jindřich’s father Emil, who made a living as a miner, had less work than before and the family lived mainly from what they raised on a modest farm. Jindřich and his brothers František and Jan joined the Baťa’s school of work in Zlín during the 1930s, where children from poor families were mostly admitted. Paramilitary education and the boarding regime were deeply ingrained in everyone, because the credo of the Baťa’s school of work was to educate young men and women to be reliable, honest and highly hard-working citizens. Henry recalls the internment of some teachers at the beginning of the war and the execution during the Heydrichiad. He experienced the bombing of Zlín by American allies and also mentions the subsequent liberation by the Soviet and Romanian armies. In the years 1945–1947 he completed the basic military service and the non-commissioned officer school in Ostrava. After February 1948, Jindřich Káňa joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, of which he remains a member till this day. He spent most of his life working as a manager (first of the accounting department and later of the planning department) at MEZ Frenštát. After the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops, he worked as the chairman of the party’s city organization and he dealt with commanding officers of the occupiers. He and his wife Jelena had two children, Jindřich and Jelena. In 2020 he lived in Frenštát.
