Jaroslav Ladýř

* 1952

  • "I got married, I married Zuzka, and by coincidence it was beautiful when we met after the military service and then we were showing each other pictures of who went to school, and I said, 'Well, look, I went to first grade here in Bohatice,' and I was showing her a picture, and my wife started laughing and said, 'Well, do you know who the other one is standing here next to you?' I say: 'No.' And she said: 'That´s me.' So I basically attended first grade with my wife. Then she moved away in the second grade, went to live somewhere else, in Tůnice, and de facto we met by chance after x number of years and got married. And it was beautiful that we actually arranged to go to first grade together. At the time, she was a little braided girl with glasses, standing next to me in the second row. So a lovely reunion."

  • "I remember, for example, in the army, my friend and I came to Michalovce, we got our hair cut there, and when we came out, we didn't even recognize each other, because we were completely naked, so we looked at each other, and he said, 'Well, I'm Pepík,' and I said, 'Well, I'm Jarda.' So we laughed about it, and I have this memory of that military service, it wasn't easy in that winter, I got a wonderful punishment then, I still have to laugh about it because we had to guard the car park during the training in the military service and I fell asleep there. They found me and I didn't go to see the Dukla Pass as a punishment. That was a ridiculous punishment, everybody went out, they were freezing because it was winter, and I stayed in the barracks because I was punished for not being able to go to the Dukla Pass!"

  • "Mostly we went under tents, he always just put it under something, whether it was a youth meeting, I don't know, like to North Moravia, to South Bohemia, he always just hid it under something and we could go like that as a gang or a group of guys from the school, or we went on marches, I still have a lot of diplomas and a lot of photos of us travelling. It was such a nice relaxed time, it was nice, nice."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Kraslice, 08.03.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 01:10:04
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I look to the future with hope

Jaroslav Ladýř, military service, 1970s
Jaroslav Ladýř, military service, 1970s
zdroj: archive of a witness

Jaroslav Ladýř was born on 12 December 1952 in the village of Žihle near Pilsen. His grandfather Alois Ladýř came there in the 1920s from Kolín to work. His father, also Jaroslav, was born there in 1927. In 1949 he married Emilia Buriánová from Horní Žďár. His father worked in Žihle at the sawmill. In 1954 he got a job at ČSAD (Czechoslovak Automobile Transport) Karlovy Vary, and so the young family moved. In the same year little Jaroslav was baptized. From Karlovy Vary he went every holiday to his grandfather and grandmother in Nemanice. Grandfather Alois Ladýř moved to a displaced village five kilometres from the western border just after the war. He worked there as a blacksmith, he and his grandmother also kept small animals, and the witness spent unforgettable holidays with them as a child. He and the village boys roamed the surrounding woods and abandoned farmsteads in a heavily guarded restricted zone. One day they were caught and arrested by the Border Guard. The whole family also gathered at Grandma and Grandpa‘s house every year at Christmas. In the village with the old mill and forge near Domažlice, sometimes so much snow fell that they could not get out for three days. After his apprenticeship at the glove-making apprenticeship in Horní Žďár, Jaroslav enlisted in the army in Michalovce. Grandfather died, grandmother too. When he returned, the family was no longer interested in the abandoned forge. It was abandoned and finally demolished. Shortly after the war, Jaroslav Ladýř met a girl named Zuzana, with whom he used to go to first class. They married in 1974 and had two children, a son Dan and a daughter Jana. During his lifetime, he had several jobs. He was lucky to have great colleagues and a good working environment. He worked at ČSAD Karlovy Vary, then at the Development of Civil Engineering KV, at the Spa House, and finally he landed at the newly established branch of Czech Radio in Karlovy Vary. He fondly recalls his apprenticeship years, when he and his courageous teacher travelled across the republic on trams under the banner of the SSM. In spite of all the happiness, he had one great unexpected pain in his life, when his beloved wife died of cancer a few years ago. In 2024, he was living in Karlovy Vary.