Václav Kohout

* 1925

  • "I wasn't zealous by any means. The coup, I wasn't at all surprised that it happened. When I put myself in the shoes of the workers, in the shoes of the people in the workhouse, in the shoes of the people who lived in poverty... When I went to the town school in Nepomuk in 1939, the coup was in '48, no... Next to me sat a boy, [son of] a bricklayer. The poverty among those people! We had about four or five hectares [of land]. I remember when I pulled out my snack... My parents also did pig-killing, or I had a piece of cake. I remember he always asked me, 'Give me a piece...' As he, the boy, sniffed the brawn and took a bite of the bread. He used to get bread from home as his snack, dry bread! We weren't farmers, we were middle class too, but that coup in '48, I had no problems with that."

  • "Imagine, that's what I remember, I was either going to buy my uncle tailoring materials or get my aunt groceries so she wouldn't have to go to the store. I remember very well [that it was] in the area opposite the Jewish church, like the little park. I walked by it, and a German soldier stood there, looking down the street. And I walked by, and I spat. I took two steps and again. I looked at him, and I spat again. And imagine - the soldier stood still. He could have run up and slapped me or something [for my] condemnation of them occupying us and stuff."

  • "We used to ride to school with our friends on our bikes. And before Nepomuk, the last village is Prádlo, and from Prádlo, there is a straight road maybe two hundred meters away, and there were American trucks. So we stopped in front of one of them by the ditch. We were curious, right? We checked them out. And I remember the soldier leaned out of the car and gave us these... It was in a cigarette-like box, but it was candy. They wanted to speak with us, but we didn't speak English. And they stood there just fine. I went to school, and after class, when we came back, the army was already stationed where it was supposed to be."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Plzeň, 17.04.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:36:58
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    Plzeň, 14.06.2023

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When I saw the misery among the people, I was not surprised that there was a coup in February

Václav Kohout in 2023
Václav Kohout in 2023
zdroj: Memory of Nations

Václav Kohout was born to Růžena Kydlíčková and Matěj Kohout on 30 December 1925 in Skašov near Pilsen. He was born into an agricultural and Catholic family but later became an Evangelical due to the influence of his aunt, Božena Vitáková, and the prominent figures of the Evangelical Church he met over time. In Skašov, he completed two years of elementary school, after which he was apprenticed as a men‘s tailor in Pilsen in 1943. In Nepomuk, he then graduated from a three-year town school, and in the village of Prádlo in the Nepomuk region, he experienced liberation by American soldiers. During his time in Pilsen, he attended both the Eastern and Western congregations of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. Both he and his parents joined the Communist Party, and his father was a functionary of the Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD). He said they were not active members and that he joined the party because of his friends. After his apprenticeship, he graduated from the industrial school in Prostějov. He worked as a tailor‘s foreman in Pragoděv and during the 1950s, spent some time working in the mines in Orlová. Then, he was employed as a teacher of practical subjects at the apprenticeship centre in Cvikov. In 1955, he married Anežka Míková in the Evangelical church in Přeštice. His next job was in a clothing manufacturing cooperative in Dobřany, then in Pilsen. He then worked in an apprenticeship school in Stod and then in Pilsen until his retirement. He has a share in organizing Old Bohemian May Days in Chotěšov, where he moved with his wife. During his lifetime, he met several prominent Evangelical personalities, such as Ebenezer Otter, Miloš Bič and Petr Adolf. At the time of filming (2023), he lived in Chotěšov.