I believed in communism, that things would get better. But it went from ten to five
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Ladislav Ondra was born on the 25th of January 1933 in Zlín. He lived his life in the nearby Bohuslavice, which was where his parents Anna and Josef came from. His father worked as a tanner and his mother was a manual worker in Svit. Ladislav entered first class in Bohuslavice in the year 1939. He vividly describes memories from his childhood before and during the war. In the years 1948-1950 he apprenticed as a carpenter in Zlín (which was renamed to Gottwaldov in the year 1949). After his studies he went to work a part-time job in the Ostrava region, where he earned money. He worked in the ironworks and mines, where he earned a wage many times higher than that for working as a carpenter. In the years 1953-1955 he served in the mandatory military service in Bratislava, where he was influenced by his commanding officer Lieutenant Devečka, who had during the Second World War fought with the so-called Free Army side by side with the Red Army and had lived through brutal battles in the Dukla Pass. His personality inspired Ladislav to join the Communist Party. After his return to civilian life he worked as a carpenter, got married and founded his own family. Ladislav Ondra describes how there were problems with unavailable housing back then. Frustration from the unfair treatment by his co-workers and fellow party members made him change profession. From the year 1959 he worked as a manual worker in the tire factory in Gottwaldov and Otrokovice. During the 60s with great renunciation the Ondra family built their own family house in Bohuslavice. In the year 1968 Ladislav stopped paying the party’s membership fees, in the following screenings they tried to keep him in the party and so Ladislav Ondra remained in it. In his colourful narration he makers closer to us the problems of people of a worker background living in the suburbs of an industrial Moravian town.
