Matěj Komosný

“They established united agricultural cooperative, but no one wanted to join in. So the people without any land went there. Only in time some joined them too and they began forcing those, who went to work and had some land too, those were forced to sign. They kept approaching me to sign. So I said I was no communist and will never be as I go to church and will never denounce my faith whatever they try to do to me. As I said that, I became the black sheep of the factory. I got employed for smaller salary. The ones who joined the party got twenty percent more on top of those, who were not. When I didn’t want to succumb, the director called me and there was a guy who recruited people to agricultural coop. ´You sign, and if not, you go to the director.´ He was in charge of that, and did nothing else, only that for a great salary. All right, so I go to the director. I went four times. Then I got stomach ulcers and got ill, so stayed home and then an employee from the national committee came to us and said: ‚Matěj, you need to come to the office.‘ So I went to the national committee office and there were plenty of men from Hodonín central communist party, then the secretaries of the communist party, then people from our town hall, about eight of them. One after another they shouted at me. And I kept saying no. But there was little to do, they shouted too strong. I said: ´All right then, you cried to much so give me the paper to sign.‚´ They gave me the paper and I said I would not sign. ‚No? Here is the paper you asked for yourself.‘ ´Yeah, but I will not sign.´´Ok, so we fire you from your job and you will have to deliver so much supply from your farm produce you will never be able to fulfil.´And I replied: ‚You cannot do that, the rations are set by the law. You cannot change that.´ ´Well we can do anything, we are the party.”

“Following my professional training they began to chase me from arbeitsamt and calling me in. The first one in 1941, I was just fresh out of school and in 1942 the first message to report in Hodonín labour office arrived and there they gave me a piece of paper: ‚You go to Austrian Linz.‘ I just looked at the three of them and said: ‚You know what, sir officers, I am only little and I would not make it there, so I won´t go.‘ And I threw the paper away in the bin. I turned around and left. Then it all came to halt. In spring 1943 they called me again and sent me to the German doctor, who gave me an evaluation report, that I´d probably not last any such labour. In two months I had to do the same; again off to Austria. I went there, took the paper and threw it away again. I´ve been brave ever since I was a small child. Then it got calm and in autumn I was informed to come to Zlín, where I have to report at the labour office. There was no way around it, I had to go there as refusing to do so meant prison. My father went with me and said: ‚I will beg for you there as we have our farm to work at.‘ They took us to one room, wrote my papers and sent us to another one. Finally off to a German doctor again. He said: ‚You know the note here says that you threw it away several times. So you should be careful not to suffer any further consequences. You will go, I say that as a doctor. Here they say your heart is weak, but that does not limit you anyhow.‘ Well my father was down, but I felt brave. What could they have done to me. Nothing. We went back home, where I stayed and at the beginning of November I got a message to report in Hodonín again. So I went there and they informed me: ‚We fill the papers for you here and you take the second transport to work in Germany.”