"At the beginning of 1952, we were woken up at night by a police commando. They woke us up, put us against a wall and interrogated our parents. Children were set aside, and because they knew that the children would say things they should not say, they also tried to interrogate us and my brother. They were looking for weapons in the house. My dad used to go hunting in the past. So, he had a rifle and a shotgun, which in 1949 he handed over for safekeeping. So when they questioned us, we told them that we had weapons, of course. They were excited and asked where we had them. We told them that they were near Ztracenka in Štěchovice. They took me and my mother and went with us to Štěchovice, where we had to walk for an hour, because there was no access road. However, disappointment awaited them there. We showed them on the stairs, two rifles hanging there. One of mine and the other of my brother. In addition, there was an old lead-filled musket that my father had won at an auction. It was actually just an ornament."
"I remember the Soviet troops, which were located in the Benešov–Neveklov area at the confluence of the Sázava and Vltava rivers after the war. I remember when somebody stole a rowboat from us on the river Ztracena because they were hungry. Subsequently, with the help of explosives, they caught fish in the Štěchovice dam. They also threw a grenade under that rowboat, so they made a hole in it, and for many years we used it repaired with the rest of the grenade in it."
"In the Nazi concentration camp, he knew that they were Germans, an enemy. In Jáchymov, it was done by their own people. They were arresting, bullying, beating. It was not an external enemy. He also talked about what a power can do with a primitive person, when one has power over someone. He can look down on others, he can bully others, he can destroy others. He also talked about how well the Communists were able to use envious people."
Jiří Martínek was born on December 8, 1940 into the family of the entrepreneur František Martínek Jr. The Framar company, which has existed since 1905 and was founded by his grandfather František Martínek Sr., continues the family tradition even in 2021. Jiří Martínek‘s father went through two years in prison in the Bernau concentration camp during World War II and in 1952 entered the penal concentration camp for five months in Jáchymov. In March 1949, the Framar company was passed into national administration. During communism, Jiří Martínek had to accept the son of the exploiter‘s son label, but he managed to graduate from the University of Chemical Technology in Prague. During the standardization, he worked without major problems in the field of paints and varnishes. After the revolution, the Framar factory in Modřany returned to him in restitution. He also got the family villa, but it was not until eight years after the revolution after a long lawsuit with the state-owned company Mikrotechna.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
