Alois Bradáč

* 1943

  • "It was also said that when we went to Bărăgan, that one German, Professor and teacher Ballman, said that we were lucky that Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej did not allow it: 'I have nowhere to put my nation!' So he put us in Bărăgan, otherwise we would have gone straight to Siberia, as the others were, the Germans, as the professor said. There, people died shovelling, throwing snow and dying, it's very cold there."

  • "On the night of June 18, 1951, militiamen knocked on the window, but they did not knock, they banged on it with their machine guns. Dad got up and they said, 'Open the door and get dressed!' Dad opened the door, got dressed. Dad opened the door, got dressed. 'Now get out, you're going to be deported, but they don't know where to.' So they read some laws... 'And don't run away! There are soldiers around the house and they have orders to shoot you!' And that they would all go from Gernik, but that was a lie. Towards the end they said, 'Pack your things that can fit in two wagons!'"

  • "I finished my first class at Gernik. When we moved to Bărăgan, I went straight into the second class. Not like my friend from Lubkov, but I did, and I slowly learned Romanian because we had deported teachers who taught us well. In three months or six months I knew half of the multiplication tables. And my mother was a maid in the school and I had to help her with the desks in the evening so she could sweep. She was employed at the school as a maid because my dad was in prison in 1952. In Banat, the tribunal sentenced him to five years and a ten thousand fine. But he didn't do more than a year and two months because he was on the Danube-Black Sea Canal. Then he came home and we started farming more because my mother, being alone, had no money. I wrote to my grandmother in Banat to send us food. She used to send us boxes, but they were not supposed to be heavier than ten kilos."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Plzeň, 05.12.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:21:11
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Several autumn rains have shown us that you can‘t live without shelter in Bărăgan

Alois Bradáč, photo from a military book, 1960s
Alois Bradáč, photo from a military book, 1960s
zdroj: archive of a witness

Alois Bradáč was born on 23 March 1943 in the Czech village of Gerník in the Romanian Banat. He grew up in a farmer family with two younger siblings, his father worked as a veterinarian and his grandfather owned a forge and distillery. In June 1951, the five-member Bradac family was destined for deportation to the Bărăgan region, where the communist regime had concentrated more than 40,000 inhabitants of western Romanian Banat, including several other families from Gernik. The soldiers detained them at night and within hours the family had to prepare for displacement. Between 1951 and 1956, they survived in inhuman conditions on the vast plains near the town of Călărași. The deportees suffered hunger, thirst, disease and isolation. The Bradacs first lived in an earthen house and later built a hut made of wood. The father of the family, sentenced to five years for not surrendering his arms, was sent to work on the construction of the Danube-Black Sea water canal, where a large number of political prisoners worked and died. He returned in 1953. Additionally, his grandfather from Gernik also awaited deportation to Bărăgan. Here, the witness attended a school built by the deportees, in which, in addition, his mother worked as an auxiliary. After returning to Gernik in 1956, the Bradacs had to wait at least another two years before they were allowed to reoccupy their devastated farm. The witness attended school in Nová Moldava and from 1961 worked at the local national committee. He applied for membership in the Communist Party, but his admission was not granted. He lived in Gernik until 2007, after which he moved to the Czech Republic, where his younger brother had gone earlier. He was financially compensated by the state for his deportation to Bărăgan after 1989. At the time of filming, in December 2023, he lived in the Pilsen region.