„I knew the Soviets so I didn't believe I would live to see some change. Because when you came in contact with those people, you understood... They believed they were superior. One of them said to me, 'Look, you must be grateful to us because we are all Slavs, we are friends, but you must be grateful to us for supplying you with oil. We could buy trucks in West Germany, but use your Tatras, which are bad, just because we like you. We take the uranium from you, but we give you plenty back. You must be grateful to us, we love you, you are our brothers, but if it wasn't for us you'd be lost.' That kind of talk. And when you saw the way they were thinking, I thought, it would last forever. I didn't believe I would live to see the end. I thought that this system would end up getting us to such a state in Czechoslovakia that we would no longer be relevant to them. That they'd have enough long-range ballistic missiles that we wouldn't be important to them. In production, we were so backward that we wouldn't matter to them. I lived thinking that, it was terrible. I felt terrible."
"I was at home and suddenly Czechoslovak flags started to appear, everyone had them hidden, my father too, but we had a big flag from Lovosice, which my parents hung on a huge house, so it was over the whole window and it was hanging down. My father wasn't very skilled, so it was handmade and not in a good way. My grandmother wanted to hang it, but she couldn't do it. She was standing on the first floor window, I was afraid she was going to fall, she was struggling and she said, 'Hold me,' I was holding her by her skirt, but I was sure she'd fall. So we didn't succeed in hanging the flag, and in a moment two men with helmets came and rang our doorbell, they asked: 'Why don't you have a flag hanging?' Grandma said: 'I can't do it, come and help us. ' - 'No, we don't have time, we're just checking, you better get it right, there are flags everywhere and you don't have one.' So these patriots came, but when we wanted them to help us, they didn't have time. Flags everywhere, we didn't have one, my father wasn't at home. That lasted about two hours, and these two were passing by again, shouting: 'Take down the flags, the German tanks are coming, and they will shoot at houses with flags'. So suddenly the flags disappeared again."
"I think it was Tuesday, we were just wandering around and we'd always come across a group that we'd join. So these two older boys had a ladder and they were erasing German signs. It was on Tuesday and it was a May Day. They were painting over the German signs and they had this short ladder, so they said, 'Come here, little one, come here, you're going to hold the paint container for us.' So I was holding the container for them and two German soldiers were passing by, with the nurse and one man on the cart, and they were just laughing at us, they didn't mind it at all. I told my dad about it at home and my dad said, 'That's good, you're a patriot too, you’re great'. And the next day I told my friend Pepík Kozák: 'I'm great, I erased the signs here,' and Pepík got angry: 'Why didn't you tell me?' But the next day he said: 'Man, you've got it bad, my dad told me that parents of everyone, who does this, will be shot. He warned me not to get involved.' And I got scared: 'Jeez, I don't know where my mum is, my dad will be shot, my grandma is old, what's going to happen with me..."
Vladimír Mašín was born on 1 February 1936 in Ústí nad Labem, but grew up and spent most of his life in Lovosice. In October 1938, he moved with his father, a postal clerk, to Prague, while his mother stayed in Lovosice after the occupation of the border area, which was then part of the German Reich. In September 1942, he entered primary school - the pavilion wooden school on the border of Vršovice and Záběhlice, which inspired the famous film Obecná škola (The Elementary School). In August 1943, he went with his mother Marie Mašínová to the Gestapo in Litoměřice; because of her anti-German activities (helping prisoners of war), she was to go to prison for two weeks, but she did not return until the end of war.He witnessed the Prague Uprising in Prague - Zahradní Město in June 1945. He returned to Lovosice, where he finished primary school and the secondary industrial school of chemistry. He then graduated from the Faculty of Economic Engineering at the Czech Technical University in the field of chemistry and in 1962 joined the research department at the North Bohemian Chemical Works in Lovosice. From 1976 he worked as head of the chemical analysis department in the laboratory of the Czechoslovak Uranium Industry in Stráž pod Ralskem. After the Velvet Revolution he returned to Lovosice, where he worked in the newly established joint stock company Lovochemie until his retirement. He and his wife raised a son and a daughter. In 2022 he lived in Lovosice.
His mother in Sokol folk costume at the Terezín Remembrance Day in May 1946 with Mrs. Kukla (wife of a fellow prisoner), Vladimír Mašín on the right, his father on the left
His mother in Sokol folk costume at the Terezín Remembrance Day in May 1946 with Mrs. Kukla (wife of a fellow prisoner), Vladimír Mašín on the right, his father on the left
The factory was founded by the Society for Chemical and Metallurgical Production with the Trade Bank and the German company Elberfeld, which in return for providing its production technologies acquired a half share in the new company. Production started in March 1923, it was the first factory of its kind in Czechoslovakia, which became the most important supplier to the Czech textile industry, especially to manufacturers of home hosiery.
The factory was founded by the Society for Chemical and Metallurgical Production with the Trade Bank and the German company Elberfeld, which in return for providing its production technologies acquired a half share in the new company. Production started in March 1923, it was the first factory of its kind in Czechoslovakia, which became the most important supplier to the Czech textile industry, especially to manufacturers of home hosiery.
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!
