"Whether as a teacher or a director, I thought I was doing it well. Or at that time - that I was not only doing what I was obliged to do, what I was pushed to do, but I always maintained a certain measure of certain values that I followed from my youth. That means speaking the truth and leading students to be truthful and honest. And that paid off. When I was at the reunion - I consider that to be the greatest value - not that I was the headmaster, but that the students approved of me."
"Absolute non-religiousness was required at the pedagogical school. The school only accepted children without a religious background. It had to be stated explicitly in the assessment. If it wasn't listed there, I had to ask for it. If the school stated that the student attends religious education, that was the only reason I could reject the pupil without reservation. A completely non-religious education took place there - that was essential."
"We had a director who had peculiar methods, especially before the arrival of the German language inspector. He was a strict guy who was feared as an inspector. So the headmaster went into all the classrooms before he arrived and said, 'All the idiots out!' So all the weaker students left. The inspector was not satisfied with how we pronounced the word 'Führer', so we practised the pronunciation of 'ü'. First we whistled or said 'fú, fú', then 'fü, fü', and then 'Führer, Führer'. I don't know how it turned out.'
Ladislav Hartman was born on December 26, 1930, in Olomouc. He spent his childhood with his parents and sister Alena, born in 1933, in Česká Rybná, and when he was seven years old, they moved to Česká Třebová. There he attended elementary school and, between 1945 and 1949, a gymnasium. During the war, they were afraid because their extended family and people in the city experienced fates that always bordered on life and death. Following the example of his relatives and parents, who were teachers, he too wanted to stand at the teacher’s desk from an early age. Between 1949 and 1953, he attended the Faculty of Arts of the Palacký University in Olomouc, majoring in music education - Russian. He immediately started teaching at the school of his dreams - the Secondary Pedagogical School in Litomyšl. He also joined the KSČ (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) there. As a teacher and later a school director, he was involved in politics until November 1989. Between 1956 and 1957, he completed military service dealing with rocket launchers in Ostrov nad Ohří. He and his first wife, Eliška, had a son. He married for the second time in 1974. His wife Ilona taught at the Secondary Pedagogical School in Přerov. With the change in the political system, he had to leave the post of director. He served his last year at the school as deputy principal and retired in 1991. In 2021, he lived with his wife in Česká Třebová. Ladislav Hartman died in November 2022.
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