Miroslav Martínek

* 1929

  • "It was half legal, half forbidden. For example, I had a 'US bag' [US military backpack], an original one." - "Back in the '50s?" - "I had it during the war, I don't know how I got it, maybe my uncle brought it to me or someone... It could take a lot of stuff - a blanket, and a mess tin on top. When I came to Prague, the guys, Franta... he was a hiker too and had a cabin in Tišice, and so I used to go to Tišice too... One day when I took my backpack in to the workbench, the guys wrote 'U.S.' on it in black ink that was used for shop drawings. From then on, it was just terrible..." - "What went on? Describe." - "At first, they wanted to erase it, and would I put a bandana over it." - "Who wanted to erase it for you?" - "The Bolsheviks. I was at the police station with the backpack." - "That's why I'm asking. I need to hear what the situation was." - "When the militiamen, policemen and soldiers started coming, we always said, 'See, something's going on - the politbureau is meeting.' We already knew as we sat in the pub... And when we walked out, they picked us up many times. Sometimes, when they did a big raid, we had to sit in Libeň at the commissariat all day. They would also detain us May Day a few times."

  • "I was at the cross-cut for three months, and that's hard work. There's a seam and you have to follow the seam, and it's so hard because that black uranium rock is awfully heavy. When they crushed it and filled thirty-kilo leather bags, they was very heavy to carry, and it went to Russia. It was loaded and it went to Russia. I was lucky; I was there for three months, and then somebody got frightened that it wouldn't work out and they wouldn't meet [the plan]... There was Modrý, Konopásek, Ctibor, the hockey players '51 who got arrested in the café on Národní třída. Zábrodský turned them in." - "You served with them in Jáchymov?" - "They were elsewhere, at Svornost, and we were at Bratrství, but we got to meet them sometimes. That was Barbora and Bytíz. I was mostly in Bratrství, and then Barbora. Svornost, not really. Then we were supposed to go to Příbram, but by then I was withdrawn. At first, I thought I'd be there for two or three years, but they didn't give me the paperwork, nothing. Then I was told that I was released, that it wasn't true or something... And I lost it [the paperwork in the floods."

  • "I belonged to the artillery club, or staff, in Znojmo. The barracks was a former monastery where monks used to be, a big facility. Then they took us to Lesná near Vranov na Moravě. There was a sawmill there, and two camps. One camp held those who prayed all the time and didn't want to work - monks and such. We were in the other camp and worked at the sawmill. Then they took us to Libavá. You know what Libavá is. We built roads there, then prefabricated houses were built there. That was the accommodation for the Russian troops that were already coming in, to do shooting exercises and so on. That's how I finished my military service."

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    Úvaly, 09.08.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 02:33:27
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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I was sent to the uranium mines for taking part in the demonstration.

Miroslav Martínek at a young age
Miroslav Martínek at a young age
photo: Witness

Miroslav Martínek was born in Úvaly near Prague on 5 January 1929 into the family of locksmith Václav Martínek and his wife Josefa, née Trpálková. He was the eldest of five siblings. The family moved to Prague in the 1930s, but they returned to Úvaly at the beginning of the occupation. During the war, the witness’s father listened to UK radio broadcasts and Miroslav Martínek sympathised with the Americans. In 1945, he received an apprenticeship certificate as a toolmaker. He witnessed and participated in the dramatic events during the liberation of Úvaly in May 1945. He joined Tito’s youth in 1946 and, until 1948, worked in Yugoslavia on the restoration of railways on the Šamac-Sarajevo line, and also in Trieste in the distribution of UNRRA’s post-war aid. After returning to Czechoslovakia, he served in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions in Znojmo and, once a civilian again, worked at ČKD as a model maker in the foundry. He married Miluška Hlušcová in 1951 and they raised son Zdeněk. They lived in Prague. In 1953 he took part in demonstrations against the currency reform, for which he was convicted. He served his sentence in labour camps in the Jáchymov region during the period of uranium mining. After eighteen months, he was released and returned to ČKD. He was a lifelong hiker. Since the 1960s, he built three cabin boats, and sailed down rivers with his wife and competed. During the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, he joined the resistance against the occupation and was fired from ČKD in 1970 over this. He then worked as a construction worker. He retired in 1988 and moved with his wife to Úvaly. He joined the Civic Forum in the revolutionary period of 1989. His wife, who worked as a costume designer at the National Theatre, was his life partner for seventy-four years and died on 2 May 2024. Miroslav Martínek lived in Úvaly in 2024.