They immediately slapped me during the interrogation. So that I knew they could afford it
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Jan Rutter was born on 12 June 1934 in Ledeč nad Sázavou and grew up in a family with watchmaking and jewellery tradition. His grandfather Jan already opened there a shop which his son, the witness´s father took over after his death. He bought a house on the square and started Watch and Jewellery shop on the ground floor, but the shop came under the administration of the national enterprise after nationalisation in 1950. A series of house searches and interrogations of family members were closely related to the confiscation of Rutter´s property. The witness´s father was convinced in 1954 but avoided punishment and prison sentence. From 1949 the witness began to study to become a clockmaker in Teplice nad Metují and for the next few years, he worked together with his father in the nationalised watchmaker’s shop in Ledeč nad Sázavou. The property which was subject to nationalization was returned to their ownership in the mid-1960s, allegedly because the house was unsustainable. Because of his low earnings as a watchmaker, he started to work for the national Water Works company. He started to work as a watchmaker after 1989 when sales premises were returned to him. He was in charge of the Watch and Jewellery shop until 2000 when he had to end his business for health reasons. The witness lived in Ledeč nad Sázavou at the time of recording (January 2023).
