Josef Kůželka

* 1948

Czech minority in the former Yugoslavia
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    St. Catherine's Day Ball

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    “Then we’d dance with a broom. That was an interesting custom. If a boy was left without a girl to dance with, he would dance with the broom. Then he would come up to a dancing couple and hit the broom between the two of them, take the girl and give her dancer the broom. If you’re not quick, you will stay alone with the broom. When a couple is hit with the broom, they have to swap, so if you’re clumsy you never get a girl and are left with a broom instead.”

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    Kač

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    “Most of all we played with the stick. We called it ‘kač’ and you had to catch it in a basket. You hit it and count. There was a rhyme to count. Then you throw the kač up and if it hits the basket you score ten points; if it hits the ground you score two. In the evening, we would go around the houses to play cards, the young people.”

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    A Czech is not a Czech unless they can play something

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    “Many Czechs could play instruments – teacher Mr Hlaváček played the violin and Mrs Marešová played the accordion and taught us a lot – those who wanted to play. Those who did not did not. Many people played instruments; some went to school. I went to school to Uncle Strnad who taught at Česká beseda. He had young folks who would go learning to play every day, so I went too. My dad played the accordion and he used to say: ‘A Czech is not a Czech unless they can play something.’”

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    Kruščica, 27.10.2017

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    media recorded in project 20th century in memories of Czech minority members in Serbia
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A Czech is not a Czech unless they can play something

2017-10-27 13.37.18.jpg (historic)
Josef Kůželka

Josef Kůželka was born on 5 May 1948 in Kruščica in the former Yugoslavia to Anton and Matilda Kůželkas. He went to the Czech primary school in Kruščica, then graduated from a high school of transportation as a tractor driver in Tuzla. He worked in the PIK Južni Banat farming combine. He fondly remembers his youth in Kruščica. He would go to dances, carnivals and amateur Czech theatre shows in Kruščica. His older relatives told him about World War II. He was involved in the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He first visited the Czech Republic when in retirement, though he is still very good at Czech.

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