"We voted for the National Socialists, who were then the most persecuted. Then, when the communists won, that was in 1948, they manipulated people so much that most of the village voted for them. There were only about three of us here who didn’t vote for the communists." - "What was it that made you not vote for the Communists? Most did, but you didn't..." - "Our father was a prisoner of war [during World War I in Russia] and in 1917 he remembered the revolution there, the Russian one. He said it was horrible. The Reds came to the village, he showed that he was white, and they shot him. Or the farmers- they set fire to their farms, the Bolsheviks. But in a few months there was nothing to eat, my father said. And then it alternated - the Reds came to the village and shot the White Guards, then the Whites came and shot the Communists. It was horrible. Dad said that if it got here, it would be horrible. And some of the Russian soldiers [at the liberation in 1945] said, 'We're bringing you freedom, but you'll be surprised.'"
"Then, when we were evicted in Štětkovice, we killed a pig illegally. There was no refrigerator or anything like that, so it was pickled, salted and put in a barrel. The gentleman we were evicted from also killed a pig illegally and sold the piece to a butcher, who took it to Prague, but in Olbramovice he was caught by an inspection, so they came right away. We were searched and they found our pig in a barrel. My father was locked up and ended up getting a year in jail. He was in Pankrác, but he didn't serve the whole time, because it was already in 1944, and then in 1945 they let the lighter prisoners go home."
"It came by some order and our people had to go to Benesov and sign that they would donate all the fields and buildings to the Great German Reich. The resettlement office was in Benesov, and they had to sign there that they were donating everything to the Great German Reich. There was no avoiding it." - "How did it come about that you moved to Štětkovice, was that what they ordered you to do?" - " No, one could find whoever he wanted, whatever he wanted. We had friends there. If somebody had acquaintances, maybe they took the family in, so most [of Klimětice] were in Štětkovice and Menhartice. The acquaintances we moved in with had horses and hay wagon, so they moved us in." - "And what could you take?" - "Furniture and firewood, that was all you could take." - "Furniture and firewood, yes?" - "Yes. But we'd been counting on that for some time, so what we could - the thresher, the engine and so on - we took away.... The ibung platz... there was the Olbramovice-Sedlčany line, and whoever was already beyond that line, the SS - HOF didn't exist there anymore and you could privately destroy things there, so we hid it somewhere. We already had timber for the construction, that we were going to make a new roof, so we took that there too."
Miroslav Pospíchal was born on 12th June 1933 in Klimětice, Sedlčany, into the farming family of Františka Dumská and Eduard Pospíchal. His mother Františka came from Klimětice, where the family had a family farm, while his father Eduard moved from the Pelhřimov region, where he also grew up on a farm. Miroslav was the youngest of four siblings, the family was of the Evangelical faith and faith played an important role in their lives. In 1939 Miroslav Pospíchal entered the first class in Hodětice. In 1942, the family had to move from Klimětice to Štětkovice because the German occupiers occupied the area for a military training centre. In 1944 Miroslav‘s father was sentenced to a year imprisonment in Pankrác, Prague, for illegal slaughter. In May 1945 the family returned to Klimětice. In 1948, Miroslav Pospíchal became a garden nurseryman in Benesov and worked there for five years until he left for the military service in 1953. During the war, he served in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP). The Pospíchals resisted pressure to join the JZD (Unified Agricultural Cooperative) until 1959, when communist officials threatened them with eviction. In 1962 Miroslav married Lydia, whom he had met in an evangelical youth group, and they raised a daughter and a son. After the 1989 revolution, Miroslav Pospíšil regained the family property and started a business with his son. On the family farm they specialise in milk production. In 2024, the witness lived in Klimětice.
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!
