“During the First Republic, or perhaps even during the Austrian rule, the state farm in Řepy near Prague was a prison state farm. The prison was in Stodůlky or Řepy. They needed people to work on that prison farm and therefore they went to pick some prisoners from Pankrác. They ordered them to line up, and since farmers and priests were mostly interned in solitary confinement, they had them come up and the farm boss was to choose among them. Each of them was ordered to say his name and where he came from, and the boss was choosing from them. Just by coincidence, when my brother said that he was ´from Jarpice,´ - the boss was from Poštovice. They knew us in Poštovice, too, and although my brother was the most miserable of the prisoners, he pointed at him and said: ´I want this one.´ The farm boss was also being watched, but as far as he was able to, he made it possible for my brother to survive there in some way. After the revolution in 1989 new institutions were being formed, and justice was foremost among them. Rehabilitation and restitution processes began… At that time I was dealing with rehabilitation claims for many people, even though I am not a lawyer. I was naturally helping my brother as well. My brother is very precise, a perfectionist, you could say. He had kept all the documents related to his release from prison. The papers were nearly disintegrating. I went to the Ministry of Justice to submit my brother’s claim. When they saw that the paper was torn, they didn’t accept it and I had to fill out all the forms again. It took several months till they got approved.”
“Although Dad was a supporter of the agrarian party, Dr. František Soukup used to be visiting us many times a year. He was one of the men of 28th October, a lawyer, and he was one of the co-authors of the first Czechoslovak Constitution. His name is quoted in the first place on the Declaration of Independence of 28th October. (Soukup was a social democrat – ed.’s note). He was coming to us, he was a great speaker, and sometimes he would give talks in the U Čížků pub after lunch. There were several pubs in Jarpice at that time. The pub U Čížků was a social democratic pub, and the agrarians were meeting in the U Dandů pub. There was rivalry among the guests, just like it is today, because people either supported one group or the other. Besides that, several of Dad’s schoolmates were high-ranking officers. One of them was the commander of the Prague Castle. He was a great favourite of President Beneš. Apart from that, we were also friends with the head manager of the archbishop’s estates. Someone from their family would be coming to visit us every week or fortnight. The tutor of the Lobkowicz family from Roudnice was also one of our family’s friends. Our family doctor, not the main one, but one of them, was Dr. Antonín Vrabec, who served as a family doctor for the counts of the Thun family at the chateaux in Děčín and Peruc. He was Masaryk’s contemporary and an expert on Austria-Hungarian politics, because he had gained this knowledge from the Thun counts. Since our family was in touch with the tutor in the Lobkowicz family, I became interested in history, and especially in heraldry and genealogy. I still know all noble families, including royal families, and their history. Another factor which contributed to our family’s interest in history and in politics as part of the modern history, was the fact that my Mom’s sister married the nephew of Vlastimil Kybal from Černochov. They mostly kept in touch only through letter-writing, because the country needed diplomats - historians after the war, unlike in the communist era, when there were mostly spies appointed to diplomatic posts, and in contrast to the present situation, when most diplomats are economists or lawyers.”
Antonín Loucký was born April 22, 1926 in Jarpice. He attended the elementary school in Budenice and after completing the fifth grade he continued in his studies at the grammar school in Slaný. After graduation he studied the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University till 1947, when he had to interrupt his studies due to a serious illness. After 1948 he was however no longer allowed to study further. His parents owned a farm in Jarpice, and Antonín’s elder brother Václav was working on the farm with the help of his uncle since he was eighteen, because both their parents had died. Since he was being monitored for his political views, he was alternating various temporary jobs. Later he was working as an economist in the office of RAJ for 19 years, then at the ministry of electricity and technology in Prague for less than a year, and in 1979-1990 as an economist in water utilization.
