The future of the Vrdy Apprentice School was not too bright, that´s why my wife and I made a decision to change the school for the Apprentice School of State Workforce No.24 for car mechanics in Čáslav. We stayed there until our retirement. The school was located inside the factory in a wooden building. When the building of the boarding school was completed, we taught in its enlarged corridors. The building of the school itself was completed in the year of our retirement. For most of the time the headmaster of the school was a certain Blažek. Apprenticed as a bricklayer, an ardent Communist. He was given the position thanks to taking harsh steps against private farmers and establishing collective farms in his function of Agriculture Officer at the local office after the February 48 coup. In the mornings, before going to school, he went for a beer to the local pub and had to have more beers in store in his school office. He always bent down for a bottle kept under the table, no matter who he was dealing with at the time. He didn´t meddle with teaching, his only interest was that every apprentice gets a certificate of completion. When we brought to his attention that not every apprentice was able to manage, the headmaster called him to his office and asked him to sing a song. He told us then that if the apprentice was able to sing, he certainly was able to master the learning programme. Once he called a meeting of employees on Christmas Eve morning. When he started his speech, I lit an incense cone and placed it on his table. When Blažek saw it, he started to laugh and said – You´re right, you can go home. He easily got drunk at every social occasion and then asked for the song called Strahováček to be played and sung.
The Ministry of Education was introducing our system of apprentice education in Egypt and Syria. Inspector Němec, who was in charge, kept asking me to take part and join him. I always refused because I knew I wouldn´t be accepted because of my uncle General Moravec. In spring 64 I was approached by the StB. They visited the Apprentice School with the pretext that they needed some infomation on the apprentices. They set a date with me a few days later: to meet up on the road to Vrdy. Only in the car did I learn that they wanted me to travel to the West, establish a contact with my uncle General Moravec and pass on the infomation on his activities to them. I refused to do so, saying I had a family and couldn´t speak foreign languages. They gave me some time to think it over promising to look after my family and that I would learn foreign languages within half a year. Some two or three weeks later, we met again. They used various methods: once they pushed hard, another time they brought me to a cafe in Kutná Hora where they insisted on treating me to something to eat. The last meeting was really hard. They told me that if I co-operated, I would save someone from my family who was supposed to be arrested. I refused. And then it was a Mr Šolta from Čáslav who was to be in charge of me. The last meeting of half a day took place at the StB office in Čáslav where they kept trying to persuade me to co-operate. Because I refused any kind of co-operation, also in 1977 when Mr Vašek tried to push me again, I thought that was that and they would let me be. Yes, they did let me be, but I was refused any wage rise. In the end, I retired having a lower salary than my wife, for example, who had taught the same number of years.
At the beginning of the year 1990 I began work on the rehabilitation of my uncle. I wrote a series of articles on him and organized an exhibition about his activities. I could use the materials from the suitcase which my uncle left behind at his sister´s when he emigrated. She then passed on the suitcase containing material from uncle´s activities in England, to grandfather, later my father looked after it and then me. At the same time I wrote a request to the President of the Republic asking him to return the military rank that had been taken from my uncle by the Communists. He received the rank back in memoriam and was awarded the Order of Rastislav Štefánik on 9th May 1991. Uncle´s family, unfortunately, didn´t see the day. The Document got lost at the Czechoslovak Embassy in the USA. Thanks to a long-time effort and great help of Ladislav Špaček, the spokespearson of the President, my aunt, the General´s daughter, received it as a gift for her 96th birthday. It was six years later, in 1997, when she received a copy of the Document.
Full recordings
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V domě pamětníka v Chotusicích u Čáslavi, 19.10.2016
Václav Moravec was born on 4th April 1929 in Čáslav. His father, also Václav, brother of General František Moravec, was a pharmacist in the local pharmacy and a member of the National Socialist Party. During the war he supplied the families of arrested local people with medicaments and as a member of the Obrana národa resistance organization was arrested in April 1942. He spent the rest of the war in Czech and German prisons returning home only in May 1945. The witness was sent to Germany to work in 1943, returned in half a year, passed his secondary school leaving exam and started to teach. He spent his entire professional life teaching at various apprentice schools, also as a methodologist of technical subjects and author of textbooks. As a nephew of General Moravec, he was not allowed to hold important positions at school, however he performed all work concerning practical life of school. During the 1960 s and 70s, he was approached by the StB and forced to collaborate. He always refused. In 1990 he began to work systematically on General Moravec´s rehabilitation. In 1991 he succeeded in him being awarded by the Order of Milan Rastislav Štefánik in memoriam. He spent next six years trying to find out the respective Document which disappeared. Finally, in 1997 Tatiana Moravec Gard, General Moravec´s daughter could receive the Document at the Czech Embassy in the USA. Václav Moravec died on 21 May 2021.
From the wedding of Marta Moravcová and Pavel Šenkapoun, Golčův Jeníkov 31.7.1976, front row: Marta and Václam jr. Moravcovi, back row: Václav Moravec senior
From the wedding of Marta Moravcová and Pavel Šenkapoun, Golčův Jeníkov 31.7.1976, front row: Marta and Václam jr. Moravcovi, back row: Václav Moravec senior
Ruby wedding of Marta and Pavel Šenkapounovi, Chotusice 31.7.2016, from left: Jan Řezníček, Věra and Pavel Šenkpounovi, Václav Moravec, Jana Řezníčková, Martin, Irena, Jiří Řezníček
Ruby wedding of Marta and Pavel Šenkapounovi, Chotusice 31.7.2016, from left: Jan Řezníček, Věra and Pavel Šenkpounovi, Václav Moravec, Jana Řezníčková, Martin, Irena, Jiří Řezníček
House of Alois and Albína Moravcovi, parents of General Moravec and Václav Moravec Sr., after their death it was home of Václav Jr., today his granddaughter Irena, Formanova 551, Čáslav
House of Alois and Albína Moravcovi, parents of General Moravec and Václav Moravec Sr., after their death it was home of Václav Jr., today his granddaughter Irena, Formanova 551, Čáslav
Exhibition to commemorate General František Moravec, from right Václav Moravec, Vlasta Moravcová (General´s wife), Tatiana Moravec Gard (his daughter), Marta Moravcová, Čáslav 1990
Exhibition to commemorate General František Moravec, from right Václav Moravec, Vlasta Moravcová (General´s wife), Tatiana Moravec Gard (his daughter), Marta Moravcová, Čáslav 1990
