“Following my professional training they began to chase me from arbeitsamt and calling me in. The first one in 1941, I was just fresh out of school and in 1942 the first message to report in Hodonín labour office arrived and there they gave me a piece of paper: ‚You go to Austrian Linz.‘ I just looked at the three of them and said: ‚You know what, sir officers, I am only little and I would not make it there, so I won´t go.‘ And I threw the paper away in the bin. I turned around and left. Then it all came to halt. In spring 1943 they called me again and sent me to the German doctor, who gave me an evaluation report, that I´d probably not last any such labour. In two months I had to do the same; again off to Austria. I went there, took the paper and threw it away again. I´ve been brave ever since I was a small child. Then it got calm and in autumn I was informed to come to Zlín, where I have to report at the labour office. There was no way around it, I had to go there as refusing to do so meant prison. My father went with me and said: ‚I will beg for you there as we have our farm to work at.‘ They took us to one room, wrote my papers and sent us to another one. Finally off to a German doctor again. He said: ‚You know the note here says that you threw it away several times. So you should be careful not to suffer any further consequences. You will go, I say that as a doctor. Here they say your heart is weak, but that does not limit you anyhow.‘ Well my father was down, but I felt brave. What could they have done to me. Nothing. We went back home, where I stayed and at the beginning of November I got a message to report in Hodonín again. So I went there and they informed me: ‚We fill the papers for you here and you take the second transport to work in Germany.”
“Only then the front began so close from here, just near the Slovak border. And we dug trenches in our garden, I had three more siblings. We had two trenches, I was with the youngest brother František. All of the sudden it began to whistle. At we corner we had a cherry tree. Suddenly there was a sound up in the tree. Russians had small airplanes and watched us digging trenches. They reported the Germans are hiding in there. So they pointed their canons at us. I was quite used to it from Germany, so I didn’t fear much. Well of course, everyone fears, that is only human, but you get over it. I lured the youngest one, but the other two were really scared. They kept their heads down shaking. And suddenly something came shooting in and bang; the whole garder full of smoke and next to us a big apiary, lots of black smoke. The two probably ran away and I told the youngest one: ´Franta, we got to crawl out slowly and off to the house.´ So we jumped up crouching. Suddenly there were machine guns shooting above us. Together we immediately fell down and it stopped. They thought they shot us dead. Then we crawled back home. The others were wondering and we just said: ´Well we are alive and kicking.´”
“They established united agricultural cooperative, but no one wanted to join in. So the people without any land went there. Only in time some joined them too and they began forcing those, who went to work and had some land too, those were forced to sign. They kept approaching me to sign. So I said I was no communist and will never be as I go to church and will never denounce my faith whatever they try to do to me. As I said that, I became the black sheep of the factory. I got employed for smaller salary. The ones who joined the party got twenty percent more on top of those, who were not. When I didn’t want to succumb, the director called me and there was a guy who recruited people to agricultural coop. ´You sign, and if not, you go to the director.´ He was in charge of that, and did nothing else, only that for a great salary. All right, so I go to the director. I went four times. Then I got stomach ulcers and got ill, so stayed home and then an employee from the national committee came to us and said: ‚Matěj, you need to come to the office.‘ So I went to the national committee office and there were plenty of men from Hodonín central communist party, then the secretaries of the communist party, then people from our town hall, about eight of them. One after another they shouted at me. And I kept saying no. But there was little to do, they shouted too strong. I said: ´All right then, you cried to much so give me the paper to sign.‚´ They gave me the paper and I said I would not sign. ‚No? Here is the paper you asked for yourself.‘ ´Yeah, but I will not sign.´´Ok, so we fire you from your job and you will have to deliver so much supply from your farm produce you will never be able to fulfil.´And I replied: ‚You cannot do that, the rations are set by the law. You cannot change that.´ ´Well we can do anything, we are the party.”
Matěj Komosný was born on 25 February, 1924. He spent his childhood in Dolní Bojanovice in Hodonínsko region. In 1944 he was placed in a forced labour camp in Friedland (today´s Miroszow in Poland). He worked as an aircraft propeller controller. Together with two other men he ran away from there in autumn 1944. He was hiding back home in Dolní Bojanovice until the end of war. The front went over the village several times. Matěj Komosný was first assigned to keep a night watch of the village and later to work in Břeclav. Men repaired roads there, which the Germans were bombing at night. For several days he also worked in Lužice camp of the Russian army at an improvised airport. In 1946 he was recruited to military service. He started in Kroměříž at the 3. Troop of Jan Žižka from Trocnov. Following a basic training he left to Slavičín to watch the ammunition storages. In 1948 he returned from army and started working at the factory for plywood and veneer called Tatra in Hodonín. In 1952 he got married and with his wife he stayed in Dolní Bojanovice. In 1955 he was forced to sign joining the agriculture cooperative. Matěj Komosný lives with his son Ivan and his family in Dolní Bojanovice. He is the eldest living man in the village.
The Friedlant camp in 1944, the photo of the boys from one room. Matěj Komosný as a little boy in the second row from the far right in the light gray flannel suit
The Friedlant camp in 1944, the photo of the boys from one room. Matěj Komosný as a little boy in the second row from the far right in the light gray flannel suit
1944 - Matěj Komosný on his war ID card. The card he managed to hide in his shoes when taking it to the factory in Germany. Maybe that's why it got preserved this damaged.
1944 - Matěj Komosný on his war ID card. The card he managed to hide in his shoes when taking it to the factory in Germany. Maybe that's why it got preserved this damaged.
1930 - Matěj Komosný on the first class photo. Unfortunately it was damaged by the grandchildren. The witness is in the middle with the most scratches my his face.
1930 - Matěj Komosný on the first class photo. Unfortunately it was damaged by the grandchildren. The witness is in the middle with the most scratches my his face.
