Ing., Arch. Boleslav Písařík
* 1924
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“Honestly speaking, I considered the fact that if I did not take the job, it would damage me professionally. I said to myself: 'You have a child, wives [the witness was married more times], let us try to do the screenings in such a way I speak about it [the witness refers to the time he was in charge of a screening committee and tried not to damage people]. In other words, I was afraid of being existentially damaged. I do not think that I was in danger of anything worse than economical cancellation or a dismissal from work at the time. My life conviction is that it could always be worse and my thinking at the time was that if I were fired, I would have a challenging task to get to a country where I would be accepted."
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“And 1948 came. I was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and I have to say that many things that already worked well during the First Republic, for example cooperatives, dairy farming, or livestock farming… For instance, my uncle had also a couple of cows and was in the cooperative because he supplied it with potatoes, and it worked really well. It was better than if he sold potatoes somewhere in a marketplace or better than if the farmers worked individually. Or for instance, youth recreations to former Yugoslavia worked well. So, a lot of things that the so-called Communist Party did, worked well. I would say that many things went well. But because I could travel, I had a comparison, and I saw that for example in the then German Democratic Republic, no matter how it was, they did not dare to nationalise someone who sold glasses or watches or mended shoes. However, it was overdone in our country – because of stupidity, unnecessarily and to the detriment.”
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“My father Vlastimil was involved [in resistance movement against the Nazis]. But it is only a speculation because he never told me anything so that it would not hurt me in case I was pursued. And that is why I must tell you that as a student at the real grammar school, I was summoned to Kounic´s halls of resistance and I was beaten there. The thing is, they investigated me by having me stand against a wall and they pushed me from behind and broke my nose."
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Full recordings
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Brno, 27.11.2019
(audio)
duration: 02:37:21
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I only care for what is in the future not for what is in the past
Boleslav Písařík was born on 19 March 1924 in England. His mother was an Englishwoman. His father Vlastimil Písařík was Czech. His parents travelled a lot before the war, and they repeatedly left his son for education in a monastery. His mother died later during the war during one of the German air raids. He and his father left for the then Protectorate. His father had his (Boleslav´s) documents forged – he was afraid that his son would be given Jewish origin because of his mother. As Boleslav Písařík was born in 1924, he was sent to do forced labours in Germany. Gestapo arrested his father in Brno probably because of resistance activities. The witness was brutally interrogated in the infamous Kounic´s halls of resistance in this connection. His father never returned home. Boleslav Písařík later worked as an architect and art historian. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia after the war. He worked in a screening committee in the normalization era. He had reservations about the regime and the activities of the Communist Party after 1948 but he remained a member and functionary of the Communist Party. The witness lived in Brno at the time of recording the interview (2019).
