Bohuslav Procházka

“When I completed my primary education, I wanted to carry on at the Upper Secondary School of Economics in Čáslav but was barred from doing so because of my origin. We wanted to circumvent the ban, me and one other from Štipoklasy, Věra Krulišová she was called. They had a pub and a farm there; so we did the exams to the economic school in Poděbrady. They kept us until 1 September. And on 1 September, when we enrolled at the school, having passed the exams, they called us into the headmaster’s office and just told us that we didn’t meet the practical requirements. And yet there were city boys there and girls. So they met the practical requirements, but we didn’t. And so they sent us home.”

“In 1950/51 they took our farm and evicted us. Dad was basically employed in the mines in Příbram and was banned from the Kutná Hora District. Mum had four children, us, to care for, she had no ration tickets, which were in use at the time. You couldn’t get anything without them. Dad was banned from any other work, and from a practical point of view, he was stuck in a mine in Příbram for several years. Then, when things loosened up a bit, he switched to the mine here in Kutná Hora, and it basically left him with such health problems that he died of silicosis.”