Václav Petr

* 1935

Relative of a political prisoner, Sokol, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
25. 2. 1948 - Communist coup d‘état in ČSR, 17. 11. - 29. 12. 1989 - The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, 1948 - 1955 - Politic lawsuit in the Stalin age
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    Our cottage was taken by Germans

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    “During the war we moved to Srbsko, where we had a brick cottage. It had both a cellar and a first floor, a small cottage it was, ten by ten meters. Next door there was this super villa. A German organisation arrived, and the Germans took over Srbsko near Beroun. I guess they wanted to mine resources - there are two quarries there. A part of the garrison stayed with the commanders, who took up residence in one stately house - it’s by the boom gate when you go through Srbsko down from the direction of Tetín. Based on the stripes on their shoulders, you could see that those who had more stripes lodged in the villa, and the cottages were occupied by those who had less of them. We lived in the cellar, they lived above us. The interesting thing is that, while everything the Germans did was bad, the ones who lived [above us] those two, three years, they had children, they were quite normal people. If someone’d whistle, they’d have taken a gun and gone to shoot us, but otherwise they didn’t behave like they were the rulers of Europe. So it worked out, our stay there.”

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    You couldn’t see for the smoke

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    “When I came there it was a modern power plant. But it was bad news for the nearby inhabitants whenever we received a supply of coal and lit the boilers. You couldn’t see anything. There’s a hill there, Farkáň, it’s visible from the road. The houses on it weren’t completely hidden from view by the smoke. On our way to work the women would shout at us from the windows that they couldn’t even air their rooms. We had to change our coal supplier, it really was a disgrace when the smoke blew right in the direction from the rails to Farkáň. The people there really had it hard back then.”

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    The Russians came and we didn’t know what was going on

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    duration: 01:25
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    “I have an abiding memory of it because we’d just finished a tennis tournament at the courts, and we always celebrated that with a drink. So we were drinking, and suddenly there was news that the Russians are here. It’s a horrifying memory. No one knew anything. I don’t know, perhaps I was stupid, but I went to work the next day. They’d literally occupied us, and there’s me going to work as usual. Because no one knew what was going on, there was no information. I remember it as one of the worst days of my life. It wasn’t anything that anyone could agree with.”

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    Praha, 16.06.2015

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There were fewer staunch Communists than us who didn’t like them

Václav Petr
Václav Petr
photo: archiv Post Bellum
photo: archiv Post Bellum
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Václav Petr was born on 15 August 1935. His father, a tailor and Sokol chief, did not hide his dissatisfaction with the Communist regime in the 1950s, which caused him to end up in prison. After graduating from a chemical secondary school and working briefly at the Tatra Works, the witness took up employment at the Walter Works factory in Prague, which was later renamed to Motorlet. He worked in a laboratory, checking the material that was used to make aircraft parts. He spent all his following years at the Walter Works. He experienced May Day parades, supervision from the Soviet Union, but also the more pleasant side of life under Socialism: cheap company recreation and sports. He never joined the Communist party.

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