Resistance fighter and a scientist respected worldwide
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Vladimír Rajda was born January 22, 1928 in Bohuslavice as the eldest of three children of Vladimír and Anděla Rajda. His father, an owner of a family business which produced wooden furnishings using the wood-bending process, was sentenced to 15 months of imprisonment in 1924 for having refused the compulsory military service in the Czechoslovak army. As a Christ‘s follower who had experienced combat in WWI, his faith and conscience did not allow him to join he army. The lawyer Jindřich Groag as well as the writer Karel Čapek were intensely involved in his case at that time, and a book titled „Vojáku Vladimíre“ (‘Soldier Vladimir‘) was later published about him. During WWII, however, Vladimír‘s father became one of the founding members of the resistance group in Bohuslavice. Vladimír Rajda Jr. was involved in its activities as well. The group also cooperated with František Bogataj, the commander of the paratrooper group Carbon. At night on April 8-9, 1945, an American bomber plane dropped army material for local resistance fighters near the place where Vladimír lived. Vladimír is now the last living eyewitness of the event. Although the communists confiscated his father‘s business after the war, Vladimír Rajda Jr. was allowed to study at the Faculty of Forestry in Brno, from which he later successfully graduated. He became an expert in the area of plant electrodiagnostics who is respected all over the world. Vladimír Rajda passed away on October, the 23rd, 2016.
