Josef Sádlo

* 1930

  • "It was a bit harsh conditions because we were in NCO school after some of the early days of the war and we were finished. And then it was split into individual 'batteries' - some were like anti-aircraft gunners. We were in charge of radar. We supplied the gunners with information as to where the aircraft was. There was also a central sight, an optical sight. And all of that was used to... There were interesting things, for example, when we went on training exercises, they would pull a bag along a rope behind the plane, and they would just fire live rounds into the bag - who would get the right shot. So it was interesting with the fact that they were using those live rounds. They were anti-aircraft guns and we were the only operators of the radar. So I was in the army in Český Třebová. And we were in charge of protecting that railway junction against enemy attack if they got here and wanted to destroy the railway junction in some way. So we were buried there behind Česká Třebová in these "zemljanki" (earth-house), as we called it. It was kind of field conditions, you could say. Earth dug out, a room dug out, where there was a bunk next to a bunk. And there was a little chimney stuck out, stones - in the winter, so we wouldn't die of cold. But it was survivable."

  • "Interesting, of course, I only know this from the stories, the Sokols bought the cinema to earn money to buy the materials for the Sokolovna. So it was actually still originally a silent cinema, so at that time there was no electricity in Byšice, no normal network. O it was being taken from the mill... There's a generator or dynamo that powered the arc lamp on that cinema. The cinema needs a lot of light to project onto the screen. In those days there was still - like some of those farm machines, cutting machines - a big wheel where the film was moved by gears. And in the hall there was Mr. Čížek on the violin and Mr. Adamec playing the piano. Because the cinema was silent, of course. So I only know it from the story. And then, when the cinema was already sounded, there were various films, especially after the war, it was the American films that we looked forward to."

  • "The train is going through Vysočany - Prague Vysočany. The first stop is Satalice. Before you get to Satalice, you go through some rocks. And that's where they stopped us. There was an alarm, so of course we got off, we looked what was going on. And we saw that there were individual German planes lined up on the tarmac in that Kbely airfield. And these so-called low-level bomber were pouring in on these planes and shooting at them. So they were destroying these planes that were on the platform. And that was an experience for us, of course. It was strange until it was over. Which again, it wasn't a long raid. And then it swung away and the train went on."

  • Full recordings
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    Byšice, 17.12.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:08:02
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I met my wife in Sokol. We’ve been together ever since.

Photo from the shooting of the interview
Photo from the shooting of the interview
photo: Post Bellum archive

Josef Sádlo was born on 22 September 1930 in Prague. He lived his entire life in the village of Byšice in the Mělník region. He trained as a radio technician. During the Second World War he witnessed a raid by low-level bombers on the Kbely airfield. His parents were involved in the Sokol, his father ran the local cinema and his father also attended the Sokol from childhood. He took part in the 10th and 11th All-Sokol meetings in 1938 and 1948 respectively. He spent his military service in the 1950s in Česká Třebová. After that he worked all his life in ČKD in Prague. In November 1989 he joined the general strike there. At the time of the interview (2019), he lived in Byšice.