In every village, there was someone who would follow a regime of any kind - the so-called weathervane.
Josef Polišenský was born on May 30, 1935, in a small rural village named Slížany, located in the Kroměříž region. He grew up in wartime that was very difficult for the villagers, especially as soldiers of several armies were taking turns in Slížany towards the end of the war. And life was not any easy even after the end of the war. Josef joined Sokol and attended the 11th Sokol meeting. By that time, the Communists had taken over already. Even Josef did notice the change of environment, receiving zero for conduct, as he celebrated Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk’s birthday. The forced collectivization hit Slížany during the 1950s. Josef’s parents had to enter into the cooperative, and his younger siblings were not allowed to work anywhere else but in the agriculture sector. Josef managed to finish his apprenticeship as a toolmaker at PAL Magneton in Kroměříž and graduated from the evening technical school. At the age of twenty-one, he had to commence a compulsory military service at the Border Guard Service. Josef refused to guard at the border and was assigned to the backup platoon that was located in Cheb. He often accompanied the funerals of other soldiers who had died at the borderline – mostly due to some unfortunate accident. Josef used to work at PAL Magneton in Morkovice. For his entire life, he has been refusing to join any political party and defies himself to people who – in his own words – have collaborated with all kinds of regimes.
