Zdeněk Sedlmajer

* 1933

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First came the Soviets on horseback, followed by tanks

The witness during the 1950s
The witness during the 1950s
photo: Archive of a witness

Zdeněk Sedlmajer was born on 1 June 1933 in Prague. He grew up in Prague Ďáblice until 1945. Here he witnessed several events connected with the end of the Second World War. With his uncle, he discovered German soldiers who had been shot and were trying to escape from Prague at the last moment before the incoming army. Or he saw firsthand the lynching of alleged Nazi confederates. After the end of the war, the family managed to acquire a house with a carpentry workshop in Šluknov, North Bohemia, where they all moved as new settlers of the Czechoslovak borderlands. The father worked as a carpenter there. All this lasted only until the communists came to power. After the ban on trades, my father lost the opportunity to run a joinery shop. Then the family moved to nearby Cvikovo. Zdeněk Sedlmajer decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and apprenticed as a joiner. He joined the Delta company and started working in the factory located in Kunratice near Cvikovo. He worked there until his retirement. As a lifelong sportsman, football enthusiast and fan of Prague Slavia, he became an active supporter of football in North Bohemia. Together with several friends, he built a grandstand, changing rooms and improved the playing fields in Cvikov and Kunratice. In 2023 he lived with his wife and youngest daughter in the family home in Kunratice near Cvikov.