Miroslav Střída

“In 1955 we received a notice: closing down of an unproductive and unprofitable agricultural farm – eviction order. We were to relocate to the Osoblaha region, but dad informed the district committee that his mother had no old-age pension and no income and what would they do about it. Nobody did anything. The district committee arranged the relocation and house change and we began to live in a house which belonged only to my father, who had inherited it from his grandma. My mum thus had to property rights to this house, and when they imprisoned dad, all this was gone. Later, during the period of the communist rule, I had to purchase the house when I wanted to live there. When my mum died, and when my dad died five months later, my grandma begged me to buy it, because it was a house which she had received as a dowry. And so I bought it.”

“When they evicted us, we then worked in ironworks. At first, they came for my father to the ironworks. He was at the police station until half past six in the evening and when he got home he then told us that they had registered him as a witness, but that he expected that they would come to arrest all of them in no time and crush them completely. He was arrested within a fortnight and they came here and turned the place into a total mess. They turned everything upside down. They searched for weapons, money and what not. Dad and I were at work and when I came home I found my mum and grandma sitting there, and both of them were crying. Everything was turned upside down. The couch was ripped open, the cushions were torn, beds turned over. Grandma and mum didn’t even clean the mess; they were in shock at what the bastards had done there. Already as I was walking towards our house, I met some people and they informed me: ‘Oh boy, it’s terrible, there were three sedan cars parked in front of your house, and several men in leather coats came in.’ I thus already knew that something had happened, but still I was shocked at what I saw. Obviously they also took some books, photographs and whatever else they could.”

“Dad had no money then. After 1952 all revenues had to be sent to a bank account which was managed by the national committee. Before that, it was normal to pay for milk in cash in a pub, for example, but after that it all had to be paid to a bank account, because we allegedly were not allowed to receive cash. They thus had the money and we had nothing. Were it not for two friends, the former maid and our grandma from Vojnice... We grew up in a situation when there was no money for bread, no money for food.”