Josef Bajer

* 1923

  • "It happened one evening. They also banged on the house door and four or five of the Russians came. They were fleeing from the bombed-out Berlin. They had already come to us. Four were kind of fine and one had a torn wound on his leg. Mum covered it with lard and tied it up. They had a stretcher and they went on foot, I accompanied them along the route here between Hodslavice, Hostašovice to the station in Dovorác we talked about, which is the station in the forest, today it is called Hostašovice. They had such a wooden grate from Berlin and they carried the friend alternately and he tried walking too. It was something, it captured me completely. I also accompanied them to the rails in Dovorác. I do not recall where they ended up. There were guerrillas in those mountains, so they somehow found each other, but it was completely blind date."

  • "In Fulnek, the unified agricultural coop couldn't start there, so I picked it up and I was immediately famous. I immediately went to Prague, gave lectures in Prague to our farmers, and so on. I was the only non-farmer."

  • "My parents were rigid Catholics. In the year 1945, it was already in May, the potatoes were already big indeed. And yet my parents urged me to go to church. Now we were in that church in Hoclav and suddenly a bang, a bang! The pastor turned and said: ´Go home, people.' So we went home and I came to the Hoclav church, it's evangelical, and now I was walking down the valley to Straník, I had such a beautiful new coat, which was modern back. There were eight shots and I fell down to the ground eight times to hide, which mattered the most. The Russians were shooting from Věřovice and I don't know if there were four or five of us running there, if it was a mistake and now just, as I got to half the hill down, in the break when I approach Straník, and it was just above the mill in those forests… I heard: ´Halt´ out loud! And a German soldier was sitting on a horse and he calls me Olmic, Olmic, meaning Olomouc. He didn't do anything to me, he was alone, he just asked the directions to Olomouc."

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    Fulnek, 17.12.2015

    (audio)
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The future Salesian, businessman and the chairman of the unified agricultural cooperative

Josef Bajer was born on January 23, 1923 in Straník in Bajarov‘s mill into a strongly Catholic family. He first attended the local primary school and then was admitted to the grammar school in Nový Jičín, which was closed after the German occupation. He then tried a pedagogical school in Frenštát, but eventually found a job in a shop, which he later also ran. In 1942, Josef (then Bajar at the time) was ordered by the German administration to go to work in Salzburg. In the end, he did not have to go to the then German Empire, but before that he was issued a German ID in the name of Bajer, which he eventually retained. Their family materially supported the guerrillas. At the end of the Second World War, he opened his own shop in Stachovice, got married, but with the arrival of the communist government, his shop was confiscated. Josef Bajer then became a planner in agricultural production in Vítkov and subsequently chairman of the unified agricultural cooperative (collective farm) in Fulnek. He participated and lectured at the congresses of agricultural cooperatives in Prague. After 1971, he suffered a stroke and, after his recovery, worked at the sawmill in Fulnek.