"What are your memories of 1968?" "I broke my leg. And when they were screening me and asking me what I was doing in 1968, I said, 'I was on a sick leave and filming.' So I got you all there guys. Toníku, you, that was the party chairman, I've got you there, as you write on the wall 'go home' . And the chairman of the ROH (Revolutionary Trade Union Movement), I got you tearing down the red flags with hammers and sickles and stomping on them. And I was screened. It was all such a spectacle."
"The worst thing is that my grandfather hanged himself because a friend of his came to him in 1940 drunk, with a gun in his hand, and said he was going to shoot up the town hall. Grandpa took the gun away from him. The man's wife went and denounced Grandpa for having a gun. They questioned him, he didn't admit to having a gun, he didn't say his friend had one. He was afraid of further questioning. His genitalia was completely blue, he had bruises all over his body. In the morning he told his grandmother he was going to the workshop to keep the boys warm. And when the boys and the apprentice came in, they found him hanging from such a clip in the wall."
"I still remember when the Germans were concentrated behind the station in one part of the brickyard. We used to go there, Mr. Schwarz, a German who had been interned in the camp, used to come to work for us. He was known as a saddler. My mother used to take me in a pram to the gate, we had to pick him up. We took him home, he worked in the workshop, helping my father and uncle. At noon he ate with us at the table, and when he left we put food for the other family members in the camp in a bag, a leather one over his shoulder. Even though my grandfather committed suicide because of the Germans, we still tried to be polite to the Germans. For us, the person came first, then only the nationality. If Czech or German, first was good or bad."
Antonín Hofmeister was born on 17 March 1943 in Domažlice. His grandfather had a saddlery and upholstery workshop, which was taken over by his father Antonín and uncle during the war. After being interrogated by the Gestapo, his grandfather Tomáš Hofmeister committed suicide, fearing further interrogation. After the war the family helped one of the Germans integrated in the camp, took him to work and gave him food for the family. After 1948, the communist regime bullied the family of the tradesman, and the maternal grandfather Josef Beroušek, a social democrat, also had problems. The father of the witness‘s friend Štěpán Václav Benda, a former People‘s Party deputy, was sentenced to death in absentia (he emigrated). Witness graduated from a secondary engineering school, but could not go to university because of his trade background. After graduation, he joined the Kdyňské machine works, then moved to the Desta engineering plant in Domažlice. At the machine works he met Emil Burian, whom he knew had participated in the murder of Germans after the war. After twenty years in the machine works, he went to Jednota as head of transport. In 1973, he co-founded the Veteran Car Club Domažlice and became vice-chairman of its committee; visits by drivers from West Germany drew the attention of State Security. After November 1989 he started his own business, took over the car workshop of Jednota, repaired Avia cars. In 2010, on his initiative, the tombstone of Josef Zyka, a gamekeeper and smuggler, later a Western agent, who was shot by the Border guard in 1951, was placed in the cemetery in the now-defunct village of Pleš.
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!
