“The communists then came, took everything from us and on top of that they wanted us to work in the field. Every farm had to deliver so called contingent, and when we did not meet the prescribed quota, they imprisoned my father for it and they evicted our family out of our farm.”
“I joined in September 1951. We got on a train in Choceň and went to Mimoň. We spent about three weeks there. We received training there: run, left turn, right turn, and so on. After three weeks they put us in cattle train trucks and we rode to Ostrava where we got off. At first we were in Mariánské Hory. There they placed us all into one room. There were about forty of us and we went down to the mine right the following day. It was the Šverma mine. There were some low machines, the n. 50 type, and channels. I have never seen them in my life and I thought: Oh, my... They made us work hard. I don’t know for how long I worked in the Šverma mine. We worked in the Armáda Mír mine after that and then in one more shaft. Eventually we stayed in the barracks in Sovinec and we went to work to the Czechoslovak Army mine in František.”
“My mom was writing letters to them and her sisters, my aunts, would always send one dollar in every letter. The letters arrived to Šumperk and there they went through the customs office and a note was attached to them that we were obliged to exchange the money in a bank within some fifteen days. Sometimes it did not pass through the customs, and we were thus able to keep the dollar, but this was rare. The aunts would always send a dollar, in every letter.”
“This is how it was after the war: we began farming, and when they confiscated our machinery, we were not able to make it, and the national administration committee thus came to our farm. A man who was a great communist, but who was, I would say, slightly stupid, came there to give us orders. He was a road mender and he was sent to our farm as its manager. They were afraid to send somebody to us, because my mom was of fierce temper - not my father, but my mother was - and they were afraid that my mother would kick him out. Therefore they sent this particular man to us. He commanded us what to do. We were not receiving any money anymore, nothing.”
“They released many of them and I was about the last one who remained there. Well, not really the last one, because there were the new draftees. But I thought it was strange that they did not let me go home even after the twenty-four months, and therefore one day I skipped the morning exercise. The commander came and started yelling at me why I had not come for the morning exercise. I spent a week behind the bars for that. I still had to keep working, but each night I had to go to sleep to the prison cell. I skipped the exercise just one day, and for that I had to go to the mine and then to the prison cell. I kept asking myself: ´Why do they do not want to release me?´ They have released everybody but not me.”
Vlastimír Zamastil was born January 2, 1930 in the small village Lhůta, which is now part of Vysoké Mýto. The family owned two farms with the total land area of 50 hectares. During the collectivization process of the countrysidethe family came to be treated as enemies to the development of socialist farming and they faced enormous pressure. Their agricultural machinery was confiscated but they still had to deliver disproportionately high quota of agricultural produce. Vlastimír Zamastil received a draft order in November 1951: due to his origin he was sent to the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP), where he unlawfully spent 31 months working in coal mines. His father meanwhile spent four months in prison for endangering the uniform agricultural plan. After his release, the family had to leave their farm in July 1952 and the farm was taken over by the local agricultural cooperative. Vlastimír’s brother and his family moved to the Jaroměřice region and his parents were relocated to the border village Bernartice in the Jeseníky region, where the communists forcibly moved many families of the so-called village riches. Vlastimír followed them there after his release from the PTP. Just like them, he was banned from further residence in the Vysoké Mýto district. All his property remained in Lhůta and the only thing he had was his uniform which he wore when he was released from the military service. The family lived in an unsuitable house and they were all ordered to start working on the local state-owned farm. After the fall of the communist regime, only one of the two farms in Lhůta was returned to the family, and the building was considerably damaged. Vlastimír still lives in Bernartice close to the Czech-Polish border.
