“In the year 1945 when the Germans were expelled by international resolutions, they were left with property. And you can say that some areas were distinctly German, there were mainly Germans there. My father, who was somewhere on the national committee during the protectorate, worked as a secretary there, was assigned to Šumperk and worked there after the year 1945, when German nationals and families moved away. However, Šumperk was distinctly German, there were mostly Germans and only a few Czechs, and if they were, they were mostly mixed families. Well, there were a lot of vacant houses there after the Germans were pushed out, there were also vacant businesses and the like. But my father, as a divorcee, was assigned there, but he couldn't get any of the houses or the villa, since he was single. Then they got together with their mother, somehow. But I can't describe it exactly anymore.”
“Graduates of workers' cadres also came to the faculty during my studies, I have already talked about that. It could be said that they were not just functionaries or party members. They were in the party, but I must say that they were not people without any intelligence. I met many people who were smart, well equipped and even worked well at their jobs. So many of them rose to great positions. And maybe one more thing: in our (study) circle of twenty people, there were about three who came from workers' circles. And among them one or two with whom I had closer contact. And I must say that they were fair people, very much so. Smart people, who even achieved respectable positions.”
“When I became an employee of the faculty, I had to develop some activity. A political one. It might be a little strange for you today. Either I should join... I was not pressured... But they wanted me to join the party. I didn't want that, so I had to work in a different way. So, I got involved in the trade union movement, I worked in the trade union movement. I was even in the competition committee of the faculty, then I was in the competition committee of CTU and even in the regional committee and the like. I undertook a very good activity there and it was generally well evaluated. In a political manner, I was pretty well established.”
Jindřich Vítovec was born on September 30, 1928, in Soběšice, near Sušice, at his uncle’s place, where his mother had moved after she got divorced. He spent his entire childhood and the Second World War in Pošumaví. The father, a former Russian legionnaire, did not live with the family. He returned to her only after the end of the war, when he got a job in Šumperk. After his second marriage with Jindřich Vítovec’s mother, his father acquired a house in Šumperk (vacated after the expulsion of the Germans there). In the new town, the witness began attending a secondary technical school. After graduating in 1949, he was accepted to study at the Czech Technical University, where he later became an assistant. He specialized in metrology (the science of measurement and measuring instruments) and gradually achieved the title of professor. During the era of socialism, he joined the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement, in 1989 he participated in the Velvet Revolution. In the 1990s, he co-founded the Czech Metrological Society, where he worked until he was 92 years old. In 2022, Jindřich Vítovec lived in Prague 6.
