Until 1989 whole life was more or less interwoven with the burden of the past
Jan Gulec was born on September 18, 1938 in Fryštát to a German-Czech family. Immediately after his birth, Free State and its surroundings were annexed by Polish troops as part of the Czechoslovak-Polish conflict. A year later, Polish tanks replaced Nazi tanks, and both Fryštát and Karviná became part of the Third German Reich. As a child, Jan also experienced the liberation of the border troops of the Red Army in 1945 and the retreat of Nazi troops. Part of his family of German origin ended up being deported to Germany as part of the Beneš decrees, his father‘s business was confiscated and he was sent to a camp, where he had to work hard repairing bridges and roads. In 1948, after the rise of the communist regime, Jan‘s family‘s house was confiscated. They lost the rest of what they owned in 1953 during the currency reform. Jan met the Red Army again in 1968, when they occupied the building of the insurance company where he worked, believing it to be a military base. In 1989, the witness participated in a meeting of the Civic Forum. Jan Gulec worked in an insurance company all his life. In 2021, he lived in Karviná.