War is always bad, wherever it is
Josef Červenka was born on 6 January 1932 in Těšov (Uherský Brod district) to his parents Dominik Červenka and Maria Červenková, née Buchtová. He was the eldest of three children. His father worked as a labourer, his mother worked under farmers in their fields and took care of the family farm. His father was drafted as part of the general mobilisation in 1938, and Josef started to attend the school in the same year. He experienced the air raids at the end of the war and the liberation of Těšov. After the school in Uherský Brod, he studied at the industrial school in Vsetín and graduated with a maturita exam. During the collectivization the family lost their fields and had to join the unified agricultural cooperative (JZD), where his mother then worked. In 1951 he went to the compulsory military service. First he graduated from the officer‘s school in České Budějovice, then he served in Aš and Františkovy Lázně. In 1957 he married Marie Varaďová and they had two children. After returning from the service, he worked in Slovácké strojírny, in 1965 he moved to the Vojenský opravárenský podnik in Uherský Brod, where he worked until his retirement. In Uherský Brod he experienced the arrival of tanks in 1968 and the Velvet Revolution. In 2022, at the time of recording, he lived in Uherský Brod.