"In Škoda we were given money in advance and then we were given the rest like everywhere [else]. Imagine that at that time you normally took 500 crowns for an advance and suddenly you got a thousand crowns for an advance. But [suddenly] the currency reform came and you could only exchange 300 crowns, so they actually robbed you of 700 crowns. Because at that [exchange rate] of one to five they exchanged 300 crowns for you. So, everybody got 60 crowns. And now these people wanted to know what was going to happen to that money, because the Škoda company ripped them off. I was working in the toolmaking unit - those workshops don't exist now - and next door they were making gears. There was a bunch of people walking through there [who were shouting], 'Come with us, don't stand here!' Well, you know, as a kid I was curious, so I went too. We got to the first gate where they wanted an explanation from the chief economist, Říha, about what was going to happen to the money. But they all the fat cats denied their presence and claimed that nobody was there, so nobody could give them an explanation. And that's when it became such a demonstration that we went in front of the town hall. They thought they would get some explanation at the national committee as to why they were robbed like that and what would happen to the money. But again, nobody said anything. So, they finally broke into that town hall. First they sent a delegation of investigators there and they picked them up. And by picking them up, it caused a riot among the people. They started to storm the town hall, and when they got there, they threw busts of Stalin and Gottwald out of the town hall, and also Russian flags. And the slogans began to be shouted: 'We want a new government! We want free elections!'"
"I know I was in Pilsen because my grandmother from Velhartice lived here in Radlická Street. I used to go to the paper mill where the Americans were housed in the forty-fifth year. And I kept guard there. I called [one of them] Bobík, what his [real] name was, I don't know. He always had a carbine on that guard there, and he would salute when the car was coming. Then he gave the carbine to me and put a helmet on [my head]. When [he was holding the guard], he always leaned against the door frames there at the entrance. [But then he gave it to me] and I saluted [instead of him] and the officers saluted me too. Then they went to lunch and he took me [with him]. At that time, they had some boiled bacon and beans. So, they put that in the mess tin for me too. There were apples, pears and oranges next to it. And somebody took some, somebody took nothing. And I was looking at it... And the cook, when he saw how indecisive I was, tore my shirt and stuffed the whole shirt with oranges."
"Since the demarcation line was in Nezvěstice, the Russians arrived here later. They came with mares. They had a tent set up there. They dug a kind of earth lodge in which they slept. They always had a guard there. They had two mares, which they used to take to get the fodder to feed them. And they used to go to [the pond] Hvížďalka. I must have been a nosey boy, because I used to go with them. I was nine years old. When we got there, he unhitched the horses. He sat on that little ferry and took out this 'soap' as we called it. It was yellow and it was probably some kind of dynamite. He stuck a portfire in it. I sat on the boat and he rowed out into the middle of Hvižďalka. He lit it there and then he went quickly away. And it exploded, a geyser, a column of water. When we got to the horses, he put me on [one] and [said]: 'Děržiš!' I understood that and I held on to the mane. He clicked and the horse bolted with such an trot that I had to do my best to stay on him. And then suddenly I heard him whistle and the mare slowed down nicely and arched back towards him. There were two of them Russians. They loaded up the fodder, then they took the ferry again and went to collect the fish. They were really in a bad way. The women cooked them goulash, gave them food. They had nothing to eat."
"My father was when the war ended... He enlisted at 17. And I know from the story that when he was about to enlist, he ran away to the Poloniny, up into the hills. And they took his father, Jiří Davidovič. So, either the son will come back and enlist, or the father will be in the army. So, my dad had to go back and he enlisted at 17. And when [the war] ended, he was wounded four times - twice in the stomach and twice in the legs. After [the war] my dad applied to the gendarmes. He had Hungarian schools and in the army he learned German, Italian and [also] Russian, because he spoke Rusyn - as they speak in Ukraine today. If they hadn't taken him to the gendarmes, his older brother Vojta, who was working in America, would have found a place for him there. But since they took him to the gendarmes, he was in the gendarmerie school in Mukachevo for two years. There he and my mother met somewhere and fell in love with each other."
Ladislav Davidovič was born on 23 May 1936 in Velká Kopaňa (Велика Копаня) in Subcarpathian Rus. His father Ladislav Davidovič Sr. fought in the World War I already at the age of seventeen and later became a gendarme and a member of the Obrana národa (Defence of the Nation). The family was expelled from their home after the establishment of the Slovak State and the annexation of Subcarpathia to the Hungarians. They spent the war years in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in Spálené Poříčí, and the post-war years in Plzeň-Litice. Ladislav Davidovič has been modelling aeroplanes since his childhood, with which he later celebrated great success in competitions. On 3 June 1953, at the age of seventeen, he was imprisoned for participating in a demonstration against monetary reform in Plzeň and served a one-year sentence in the juvenile detention in Zámrsk. Both sisters were also imprisoned, his father was sent into retirement and the family was expelled to Chudenice. He worked as a toolmaker at the Škoda factory, then at the Kovoprav in Hradiště. He graduated from the night industrial school and in 1956 he entered the compulsory military service. One year after the service he worked as a metallurgist in Dobré štěstí mine in Dobřany, later he worked in Plastimat in Plzeň-Černice. He became three times champion of the republic with his control line scale aeroplanes (1967, 1969, 1971), for which he was awarded Master of Sport. He also worked as a treasurer and manager of the Bolešiny Model Club. At the time of recording in 2022, he was living with his second wife in Chudenice.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
