"In 1952, sometime in the summer, there was a court here in Hradec, the so-called people's court. At the time, I worked as a draftsman in the former Ippence, that is Mostárna, later Mostárna ZVÚ. There, tickets were supplied to the factory or Škodovka or those factories as tickets for the court. I knew from my aunt that my uncle was there, apart from the others – there were about four or five of them in the trial – so I went to the court, I got there with that ticket. But this trial was carried out almost half a year after my uncle had been locked up and he was in some kind of pre-trial detention. Then when he got home, when they let him go, he said: 'They wrote for us what we can say. Until I knew the exact words what they had written for me...,' just a whole long talk, how he was guilty, what a saboteur of the national economy he is and all these things. For this he received a sentence of seven and a half years, of which four years he was in Jáchymov. At the same time, the judgment stated that he is a saboteur and weakens the supply for the population and the national economy, that he is simply a saboteur of the national economy. Nothing more on him - they found neither anti-state activity nor shortages on him."
"In 1948, I went to school, and because I... when there was no snow, it was more than five kilometers to the school from the back of Svobodné Dvory - to the school - it was more than five kilometers. When there was snow I walked, when it was dry I rode my bike. At the end of February - I don't know if it was exactly February 25, there was a so-called general strike. And during that general strike, the so-called People's Militia already controlled it. These were armed people, factory workers who had guns with sharp cartridges. And when we went to a parade from school, it was obligatory on May Day or simply on some anniversary, so those who walked, those went, and we who rode bicycles went behind the parade, and of course, as we were out of sight of the teachers, so we sped off and drove away. I remember that I drove around Central, then along the side road and then through Horičská street to Dvory. I was riding my bike and the guy from the People's Militia was standing by the Central with a shotgun, and at that very moment or just then they started playing the Russian national anthem or the International. And I kept going and he yelled at me, 'Get off that bike or I'll shoot!' Something like that and I drove on, I did not give a damn. I knew he wasn't going to shoot and instead of the International I ran away from him."
"Regarding the mammoth, there were practically two brick factories in our property at first - at the beginning of the 19th century. One was just behind the farm. There is still a so-called hole where bricks were practically made. But at that time, they were still unfired – it was molded with chaffs and the bricks dried out. Then the second brick factory was the so-called rear brick factory, and it was towards the street K Dolíkám, towards Plotiště, because the entire territory of Svobodné Dvory-Stěžírky or Stěžera, Plotiště, Předměřice was alluvium from the Elbe, which at that time had a lot of blind shoulders and everywhere there was high-quality brickwork clay. We had one of the best quality, with a layer of about six meters. When the brickwork started, and that was sometime in March, or when the ground had simply defrosted a little, then holes were drilled into the clay, into which a charge from Semtín was inserted. During that charge, part of the brick clay was blasted off, and after that blasting the bricklayer workers came who continued to process the clay. It had to be soaked, it was mixed with fine sand in a certain ratio, then it was put upside down in the so-called place to dry a little. Then it was put into these little sheds where it was allowed to harden so that it could be transported to a larger warehouse and from that larger warehouse it then went to the circular brick factory where it was fired. But after the blasting, the workers immediately found some part of the two mammoth tusks. Later some other remains were found, some stools, some tusk and some flint, a flint knife was found there. This meant that Hradec Knox was already inhabited at that time."
"At that time, I was an attender of the non-commissioned officer school. I was in a platoon of computators and measurers, they were surveyors and we were computators. And when I came to the interview, it was for three weeks, such an interview and sorting of the new recruits, the commander of that interview was First Lieutenant Volf. Coincidentally, he came from Bříza. Bříza – this is the neighboring village of Svobodné Dvory. And since our family and parents knew each other, Mr. First Lieutenant Volf asked me: 'Hey, are you Morávek from Dvory?' I nodded. 'Your father was a builder and you had a farm.' 'Yes.' He took the paper that came from the military administration, where it was written 'politically unreliable'. Volf took a razor, scratched the 'un' and I was able to get in... well, I wasn't in the normal team somewhere near the horses, but I was assigned to the non-commissioned officer school, to such an elite component. Those were the computators and measurers – calculating the elements of shooting and generally drawing maps and such matters.”
"It was a large farm. Just the house had - two, three, four, five, six, seven rooms. There was the furniture for which we had no place. Lots of things were left behind. Various books of my father's, for which we had no place, and some furniture. I recall that before I did my military service, there used to be inspections. They checked whether we handed over all the grains, counting the geese and the chicken, alongside horses, cattle, pigs. Everything had to be counted. And they even did house searches."
"At home, we had a Prussian rifle which was used during the 1866 battle of Chlum. It was a historical weapon. But because the inspections were coming over and checking everything including closets, I took the rifle - my mother told me that I couldn't have kept it anymore - and threw it in the pond."
"So, I came up with the idea of the lollipops, after consulting an architect. The architect only prolonged the part on the top. I made the calculations and the visual proposals alongside my engineers. As of now, they have been standing for forty-five or forty-six years."
Miloš Morávek was born in June 1932 in Svobodné Dvory, on the outskirts of Hradec Králové where his family owned a farmhouse since the 17th century. A part of the homestead was a renowned brick factory, hand making quality products. Up to this day, there are a number of buildings in the vicinity, which were built using those bricks. In 1899, a skeleton of a mammoth was uncovered directly on the premises of the brick factory, being deposited in the Museum of Eastern Bohemia. After the communist takeover in February 1948, the farm was nationalized, the brick factory torn down and the whole family expelled. In difficult circumstances, Miloš still managed to obtain university education. He graduated from a faculty of civil engineering and worked in Stavoprojekt for many years. He is the author of a renowned landmark in Hradec Králové, the so-called lollipops.
His grandmother Marie Kučerová and grandfather Jan Kučera, the small child is his uncle Josef, the bigger child is his mother Marie, Langhans, Hradec Králové, 1910
His grandmother Marie Kučerová and grandfather Jan Kučera, the small child is his uncle Josef, the bigger child is his mother Marie, Langhans, Hradec Králové, 1910
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!
