"The hotel [Hotel Široký] was up until quite recently, but it was torn down. They built wooden barracks for the Wehrmacht on that perpendicular sort of plaza. I got to know that when I was Mr Kordas's apprentice. He was given a production order and a drawing of the cabinets for the troops in those wooden barracks. It just had to be done immediately; the stuff that was ready for other customers, for normal people, had to wait. It had to be put aside and they had to start making the cabinets. There was a deadline for that and he wasn't allowed to say, 'I can't'. He got all the materials with priority, whether it was nails, wood, glue... everything with priority. He received that order, he went and picked out what he needed, and that was it. It just had to be done."
"I was with my cousin, he came from the same farm, and I rode a horse with him. It was the 7th of September. There was no PA system in the village - there was a drummer, a municipal policeman who would read the news to the villagers in the evening. He drummed a fill, and people came out and he read the news items in a clear voice so people knew, because there weren't even radios. Who had a radio? There was maybe on radio in the whole street; the lady would turn it on for us to listen to when there was a football match broadcast or something; nothing else was on."
"We were at school until 4 o'clock, then we took a train or bus home; see, we were also afraid of the Germans. When the Hitler Youth marched through town. They [walked] past the town hall, then left past the Baťa shop and up to Pavelčákova and to the park. They carried their flags, the national flags of course. If anyone didn't take off their headgear, the first and tallest one of them darted out of the line as a machine gun shot and immediately started dealing slaps with both hands."
František Kosina was born on 13 August 1930 in Ludéřov, a part of the village of Drahanovice, as the only child to Cyril and Marie Kosinas. His parents came from farming families that owned some land. Both worked for farmers in Knínička, and later they saved enough money to build a house in Ludéřov to live in with their son František. This is where the family lived through World War II and local war events. His father worked as a coachman, then in a quarry and then at Sigma Lutín. Between 1944 and 1947, František trained as a joiner in Náměšt’ na Hané with Mr. Kordas where he worked for some time. Post-1948, the business owner had to dismiss him as he was no longer allowed to have employees, and nationalisation began. The witness worked at UP in Olomouc, making furniture. He served in the military in Malacky, Slovakia in 1951-1953, leaving the army with the sergeat rank. He then worked at UP in Velký Týnec and later at Sigma Lutín where he witnessed the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. He married Jiřina Kmentová, a shop assistant, with whom he raised two daughters, Irena and Věra. He never joined the Communist Party. In order to facilitate his daughters’ admission to high school, he joined a furniture cooperative in Loučany. He retired in 1995. At the time of filming 2023, he lived in Náměšt’ na Hané. František Kosina died on 17 November 2023.
