Vladimír Lakva

"Grandfather was no longer alive and grandmother lived there with us with her son Josef, who was blind. So they scattered, as they say, although they did nothing at all, not even a hint. They put my uncle in an aimshouse and grandma in an institution. This freed up our homestead and the JZD (unified agricultural cooperative) was founded out of fear. The other farmers did not want to join the cooperative, but then they all signed the application out of fear. After modifications of our house and a barn, they moved cows in and turned the rooms into offices, where the economist and the chairman of the JZD were. They turned the “výměnek” (a cottage reserved for the farmer after he passes the farm over to his heirs) into accommodation for part-time workers, and they were mostly Roma. At that time, there was a flood in Slovakia, and the families of those Roma - Gypsies came to us. They slept on the embankment by the barn and in the “výměnek”, and you can't imagine what a mess there was, as there was no toilet. Terror."

constructions, which were previously called Technical auxiliary battalion, I was able to return to our former house. But it was in such a desolate state that you can't even imagine it. There was dung two meters high in the yard, liquid manure was flowing from the well because they didn't take anything out, the gate was broken, the roof had fallen in the shed and in the barn, the barn had burned down. That's when State Security officers came and investigated the father to see if he had done it himself. In the end it turned out that it was a walk-through house and the kids were playing there and set it on fire."

“He went to say goodbye to the horses and cows and since that time we saw him no more. Then we went to the lawyer and he told us to obtain a statement that father was not a kulak, but nobody would issue such a statement for us. Then there was the court trial in Olomouc. I was ten years old and I was not allowed to go there. I heard from the farmers that they allegedly even had Hussite weapons displayed there, and stupid things like that. Then he was imprisoned. The first and last visit that we did was in Ostrov near Karlovy Vary. There was a room with a wire fence, and one policeman on one side and another on the other side. Mom said that she was not even allowed to kiss him. They had ten minutes. My parents then agreed that she would not come to visit him because it was terribly heartbreaking.”

“Two trucks arrived. We loaded coal and wood onto one of them, and furniture on the other. We arrived there at night. The house was broken, windows smashed, there was only one room, and there was a corridor in the middle, and a cowshed on the left. We got up in the morning and some of the coal and wood was stolen. The boss came there immediately and he said to mom that she had to go to work. She had to keep an eye on cows on the pasture. I was commuting to school to Cvikov through a forest. It had an impact on me, too. I was from an agricultural family, and my school grades were quite good, and I wanted to keep working in agriculture. But as a son of a kulak I was not admitted to study at any of the schools. As for my vocational training, I eventually got a job as a machine fitter in Mohelnice, and I completed my apprenticeship there. Since we were allowed to return to our house ten years later, I then had to go to work to the cooperative’s workshop. I stayed there for ten years, but the place had no heating, and my back suffered, and based on health reasons I thus found a job as a maintenance man in the logging company in Bohuňovice, and then I worked there for thirty years until my retirement.”