Jan Tichý

"At that time, there was a danger in Poruba that we would be evicted. It didn't happen in the end, I don't know why. In some neighboring villages, however, it happened that when peasants in the village did not want to enter into the collective farm, they evicted them to the border where they got some house left by the Germans. And their farm inland was taken over by the collective and the collective started farming there. That's how it was practiced. We have been notified that we and three other families were being evicted from Poruba. Our family was to be evicted to a village which today is on the banks of the Silesian Harta. My father went there to take a look, and on one of the farms he found an inscription written in lime: Tichý. He then had wooden suitcases made for the whole family. We each had a suitcase in which we packed our personal belongings and put it under the bed. Family documents, duvets and the like were in other big boxes. We lived like this for four or five years. We were waiting for it to come. This was done by a truck arriving at three in the morning and the family having two hours to leave the house. And they took them away. So, in order not to be panicked, we had, as in the war, everything packed and ready to leave. That was a part of our lives for about four years. ”

"In Poruba near Svinov on September 10, 1953: 'Mr. Tichý, according to the statement of the MNV, you owe the state 6443 kg of grain from this year's harvest. Surely you know very well that we want to build socialism in our country. That is why we must properly feed the nation. By not surrendering the prescribed amount, you are helping those who are trying to start a new war and want to destroy the results of the work of our workers and peasants. Our workers in factories and mines dig coal for you, make machines, electricity and clothes. You have to feed our nation. We therefore implore you to understand the importance of fulfilling purchase and sale, to prove your love for our people's democratic homeland and to fulfill the prescribed amount. We hope that you will not only fulfill your task, but exceed it. This will make you one of the proud builders of our republic. ‘Pioneers and students of 8-year high school near Svinov."

"My father was in public service and the other farmer, Mr. Bárta, had fifty hectares. He was my distant uncle. He was very progressive and a very kind man. In Poruba, everyone watched what Bárta and Tichý would do. What happened to Mr. Bárta was that he was being pushed hard and he died of a heart attack in 1953. He recovered for the first time, but when it happened a second time, he died. It is said that they were forbidden to treat him in the hospital. I have a personal memory of that time. I followed him, and about two or three days before his death, we lubricated the carts together. And when he was buried in Vřesina, I carried a cross. It was one of the biggest funerals I've seen. When we went to Vřesina up the hill to the cemetery and looked towards Poruba, the end of the procession was all the way back in Poruba. Then I learned that the StB had maneuvers at Barta's funeral. When Mr. Bárta died, the farm was nationalized, the Bártas had to move and the first collective farm began there. However from 1953 to 1957, when all the other peasants from Poruba entered into the collective, it was not doing well. "

“Our first year in the vocational school was like the entry course in the army. Wake up call at six, exercise wearing just underpants, no matter if it rained or if there was snow, nobody cared for that. Then a march for breakfast, to report for lunch, to report for supper. Compulsory study and training. Leave was permitted on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We got three or four hours on Wednesdays and six hours on Saturdays.”

“The fighting here lasted for about two days. They came to us from Poruba among the first ones. In the direction of the university hospital there, the armies came from that direction. My father was watching it from the attic and they were shooting at him because they thought that he was some sniper or a German spy, because Germans were still there. They took it by storm and they pushed them away and the rest of Poruba, from the church onwards, to the chateau and there, they were still fighting there on the second or third day. There were about thirty or forty people here in our basement. Half of them were children and half were adults.”

“They wanted to evict us and two other families. My father learnt that we were to be relocated to the village Razová in the Bruntál region, and he thus went there to see the place and on the gate of the farm there was already a sign: Tichý, Poruba. He arrived home, we packed our things, because operations like this were always brutal. A truck would arrive at three o’clock at night and people had to leave their house within two hours and get on the truck and they were taken away. In order to be ready, each of us thus got our own suitcase, in which we had prepared our the basic necessities and we kept our suitcases under our beds and we lived in this way for three or four years..”