Libor Křivánek

“If I am to be honest, I must admit to one sin - that we looked forward to when there’d be an air raid. That was because we’d go home at around half past ten. Not a day passed by that they wouldn’t sound the alarm. The siren screamed, we packed our bags quickly and legged it home. It took five to ten minutes to get home, the way we rushed. Either we hid down under, or we watched what would happen, thrilled by the fact there’d be an air raid. So the raids were always announced ahead of time. But then one, sometime in March 1945, was sudden and severe. The nearby refinery in Kralupy was bombed. Some say on purpose, some say by mistake. I think it was on purpose because although they didn’t produce paraffin - also called lamp oil - there any more, they still had some of it in stock, and it was a wartime depot. [...] The lamp oil caught fire, the detonations were enormous, we were in the cellar and we were really afraid. Even the vaulted ceiling of the cellar shook. We shook as well, so did the walls. When we climbed out, nothing happened for a long time, the all clear sign had been given. The planes were gone. We went to have a look around, and there was a terrible black smoke above Kralupy - which was about three kilometres away from us as the crow flies - and it started rolling towards us. Suddenly, leaves began falling out of the black cloud. We didn’t know what it was. Really, utterly coal-black leaves. So we boys started catching them. Well, and we competed for who would get the biggest leaf. Those were accounting books from the paraffin factory, which had been blasted up into the air by the detonation and were starting to fall back down to the ground two hours later. The beautiful thing was that you could read it because it was written in pencil, probably indelible pencil - the paper was black [except] in the places where the indelible pencil was, so it was kind of like a negative.”

“The older brother, Mirko, has to go commute to the mines in Kladno. Well, and then he had some workplace, he commuted to Podmoráň, where there was a distance pipe - a long-distance water pipeline. And he serviced it. So that’s one. Zdenda, he had an even more complicated situation. He’s the Brno one, he studied as a vet, and they kicked him out in his ninth semester. He was always the brazen type. So I guess he said something [unacceptable - trans.]. He was kicked out in 1949 in the ninth semester. In the last year, last half year of his studies. So that was cruel. He wrote an appeal, our parents went there several times, to no avail. Finished. He went to the AEC [Auxiliary Engineering Corps - forced labour instead of military service - trans.]. Then he worked in Brno for a long time, building trolley wires. Whenever I think of it, when I pass by Brno, I see those trolley wires. He says he hammered those cramp irons into almost all the houses halfway through Brno.”

“So for us, to tell the truth, it was so quick that by that time we had already gone through the first two phases. Namely, in 1950 they placed the farm under national administration because farms larger than 50 hectares immediately had a so-called forced tenancy imposed on them, and they could confiscate it with just one deed, without having to prove anything at all. I can show you the deed according to which it was confiscated. So we still lived on the farm, but we were only allowed to access the living quarters because the barns, cow sheds, those were all confiscated. They chased us fourteen-, fifteen-year-old children away from there. We were curious, we’d chased around all over our yard, the garden our whole lives; we weren’t allowed to go anywhere. So that in itself must have been punishment for our parents, this supreme humiliation; they let us live there because they had no idea where to deport us to.”

“When we were still on our farm, but it was already confiscated, Dad, not having any work to do, wondered around the fields and woods and watched how the new people did farming. Of course, he also happened by some potato fields, and local snoopers were quick to spot that he went along the same path a few times. That was reason enough to accuse him of spreading the American beetle there, the potato beetle. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but that was this rumour in the 1950s that the Americans are spreading it [the beetle - trans.] here to destroy our potato culture and thus starve us to death - that was the theory. Of course, who else could have done it but Křivánek the kulak, who walked around places. It was big trouble, in the end they took the matter to the local national committee. Dad defended himself by pointing out that the same beetle was to be found in the neighbouring Tursko, in Úholičky - and who was spreading it there. The defence worked, so he was only given some kind of reprimand, whereas he could have ended up in prison because that was endangering the national economy, and there was another section [of the law - transl.] for that.”

“In 1954, with both Stalin and Gottwald having died in 1953, there was a short period called ‘The Thaw’. The most critical issues began to be discussed. The cult of personality cult was criticised, and so on. And then came this matter with forced labour in agriculture. So after interviews, the heads of the farms had to have a so-called interview with each person individually, and that he should stay in agriculture, but not in this forced place, but that he could work at home. He could chose either the mines, or agriculture. Most of us searched for something in agriculture close to home; some, the older ones, went to the mines.”