Move out in forty-eight hours or we‘ll take you to Siberia
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Jiří Fanta was born on 19 April 1941 in the village of Zhoř near Vilémov in the Vysočina Region where he grew up until age eleven. He was the youngest son of Josef Fanta and Marie Fantová. The family managed more than 20 hectares of farmland. The past generations had farmed there since after the Battle of Bílá Hora. After World War II, the took a loan to procure machinery. After the onset of farming collectivisation, they refused to join a cooperative and faced persecution, including searches, confiscation of property and increases in supply quotas that they were unable to meet. Both of the witness‘s brothers served in the auxiliary technical battalions. In June 1952, the family was forcibly displaced and moved to Golčův Jeníkov where the parents worked in the local cooperative. In 1953, the father was imprisoned for several months for failing to deliver. The witness‘s mother died in November 1954. After the eviction, Jiří Fanta went to school in Golčův Jeníkov. Because of his class background, he was only allowed to study a vocational school, completing his education at the agricultural school in Havlíčkův Brod later on. He worked briefly as a zootechnician but clashed with a member of the Communist Party. In 1963 he returned from military service, got married and settled in Kluky. His father worked in the Golčův Jeníkov brewerey until retirement and then moved in with them. After 1989, his father was rehabilitated and his property was returned to the family. Jiří Fanta only received the farm back in the 1990s, nearly destroyed. After renovation, he and his wife moved back to Zhoř in 2001, where they continued to farm and live until November 2024.
