Bohuslav Veverka

* 1936

  • "He had a hand injury to his hand, so he went somewhere to Rychnov. And he was in Žamberk, and there two secret policemen packed him in the square and dragged him - they did not pull him in, but led him into the chateau street. He had his hands up, they were teasing him and Emil Kristejn was just passing by, and when he saw that he was being arrested, he turned around in the square and drove home. Here he told Suchodol in the field that the father had been arrested. And Suchodol came to us and told Mom. And she burned all the papers that were still here. I don't know if the next day or the same day the secret policemen came and found nothing."

  • "The neighbour was locked up a lot. He didn't comply with the supplies either. He had about thirty hectares. They locked him up, and now they didn't know who was going to work in the field - so they wanted us to work for him. He was a legionnaire, he took everything in a sporty manner: 'Well, if they lock me up, they'll let me go again.' Then they didn't know what to do with him, so they let him go free again. They also threatened to move us there to the gypsy mill, this is a cottage near Rokytnice. And they also threatened to evict him. Even the guy who lived in the gypsy mill came here to see if he... They wanted him, if he took over the farm here, but he refused, so they didn't evict them."

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    Kunvald, 30.04.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:02:27
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Whoever had more fields got locked up

Bohuslav Veverka was born on February 8, 1936 and spent his whole life on a family farm in Kunvald under the Eagle Mountains. Since early youth he worked at home on a farm and balanced his work with sports. He liked to practice in Sokol, go skiing, play theatre, fish and go hunting in the forest. His father became politically involved. In the 1950s, he refused to join the collective agricultural cooperative. Fearing for the fate of the family and family property, he divorced his wife and left the family. In 1954, the witness’s father, Bohuslav Veverka, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his work. He died in Leopoldov three years later. Bohuslav Jr. spent the war in the years 1957-1958 with the Technical Battalions. Meanwhile, the mother farmed at home alone and bravely resisted harsh communist pressure, prescribed supplies and repression for non-compliance. In 1960, they agreed to join the collective farm, where Bohuslav Veverka worked until his retirement.