PaedDr. Jaroslav Kozlík

"I went to Mr. Baťa and he looked at it, then got nervous and said: 'It's good, but there will be a running track under the ceiling.' I was shocked at the idea, and he said that when he was in America he would go jogging, and that there was a running track under the ceiling in the building. I started to explain that a school building and a runners' practice building are two different things. He disagreed, and that meant that you left without a signature and you were expected to come back with a modified proposal within two weeks. I didn't modify it, just submitted it as it was. He started to frown and I got nervous. When I saw him, me trying to explain it and him not understanding, I asked him a question: 'Mr. Baťa, you know, some people understand nuts and bolts, some do shoes, and I know a bit about physical education.' He looked at me in amazement and then signed it without a word, and he remembered me well after that."

"He had a gym in his villa, though it was not a gym, really, and there was a pool table in the middle. I didn't know; I was concerned about what to tell him, what we would talk about. We had to get to know each other. I was afraid. We bought gloves. We fought; he was heavy and strong, and I was agile." – "Did you do boxing?" – "We did boxing, we wrestled, we skipped rope… Interestingly, we ultimately became friends, just like brothers. Jan Baťa loved singing, so we always ended up walking around the pool table. But in the spring, we walked out, we jogged in the park and then we sung in his garden, and there were people going to work past the fence, and they watched me and Baťa going crazy." – "What time was the morning exercise?" – "That was from six to six twenty sharp, and then I went to the Čiperas."

"Those were very hard times, we suffered through hunger, poverty and fear of what we were living through and what was coming. There was nothing to buy at shops, so I walked around the nearby villages and asked for food. It was flour, pollard, a bit of bacon, sometimes quark or an egg. In addition to hunger and poverty, there was nothing to wear, nothing to wash with. There was no soap or any washing liquids. As a result, we suffered from a bad case of scabies."