Václav Moravec

The future of the Vrdy Apprentice School was not too bright, that´s why my wife and I made a decision to change the school for the Apprentice School of State Workforce No.24 for car mechanics in Čáslav. We stayed there until our retirement. The school was located inside the factory in a wooden building. When the building of the boarding school was completed, we taught in its enlarged corridors. The building of the school itself was completed in the year of our retirement. For most of the time the headmaster of the school was a certain Blažek. Apprenticed as a bricklayer, an ardent Communist. He was given the position thanks to taking harsh steps against private farmers and establishing collective farms in his function of Agriculture Officer at the local office after the February 48 coup. In the mornings, before going to school, he went for a beer to the local pub and had to have more beers in store in his school office. He always bent down for a bottle kept under the table, no matter who he was dealing with at the time. He didn´t meddle with teaching, his only interest was that every apprentice gets a certificate of completion. When we brought to his attention that not every apprentice was able to manage, the headmaster called him to his office and asked him to sing a song. He told us then that if the apprentice was able to sing, he certainly was able to master the learning programme. Once he called a meeting of employees on Christmas Eve morning. When he started his speech, I lit an incense cone and placed it on his table. When Blažek saw it, he started to laugh and said – You´re right, you can go home. He easily got drunk at every social occasion and then asked for the song called Strahováček to be played and sung.

The Ministry of Education was introducing our system of apprentice education in Egypt and Syria. Inspector Němec, who was in charge, kept asking me to take part and join him. I always refused because I knew I wouldn´t be accepted because of my uncle General Moravec. In spring 64 I was approached by the StB. They visited the Apprentice School with the pretext that they needed some infomation on the apprentices. They set a date with me a few days later: to meet up on the road to Vrdy. Only in the car did I learn that they wanted me to travel to the West, establish a contact with my uncle General Moravec and pass on the infomation on his activities to them. I refused to do so, saying I had a family and couldn´t speak foreign languages. They gave me some time to think it over promising to look after my family and that I would learn foreign languages within half a year. Some two or three weeks later, we met again. They used various methods: once they pushed hard, another time they brought me to a cafe in Kutná Hora where they insisted on treating me to something to eat. The last meeting was really hard. They told me that if I co-operated, I would save someone from my family who was supposed to be arrested. I refused. And then it was a Mr Šolta from Čáslav who was to be in charge of me. The last meeting of half a day took place at the StB office in Čáslav where they kept trying to persuade me to co-operate. Because I refused any kind of co-operation, also in 1977 when Mr Vašek tried to push me again, I thought that was that and they would let me be. Yes, they did let me be, but I was refused any wage rise. In the end, I retired having a lower salary than my wife, for example, who had taught the same number of years.