Oldřich Vytvar

“When the currency reform took place, I was doing my military service. You can find it strange, but I was at the state border and I didn’t have a clue what was happening. We were only told about it when the funerals of the two [Stalin and Gottwald] were over. And when you are in the army, you have to obey. That’s how the army is like. We were there. I can tell you, when the currency reform happened, we in the army barracks were laughing at people who were bustling back and forth with wagons, and buying furniture and motorbikes and I don’t know what else. And they still kept telling us that nothing would happen. That was during president Zápotocký’s administration. And then suddenly an alarm was sounded at midnight and I found myself standing in the savings bank building with a rifle and we were guarding the bank because people were pushing in there and everyone wanted to withdraw their deposits. It was something so desperate. And I myself did not even have a single Czech crown to exchange.”

“Well, it’s true that around 1944 there was already shortage of coal and we did not go to school regularly. We were only going there to pick up our assignments. And then we would be told to come ten days later, for another set of assignments. We would be told what homework to complete, get the exercise books, and we would go home. Well, those who managed to do all that at home in a day or two, well, then they had nearly ten free days. And then we would go to the school again with the homework, and I don’t know how the teachers managed to correct it, but I think that they just made a checkmark there.”