Blažena Froncová

“Director Kazda came and said: ‘girls, come here, I want to tell you something. Today, I was in Popovice to persuade the people to join the farming collective’ (these Communists had the nerve to do this). So this nerd went to Popovice to persuade the people that they had to join the collective and there was a woman who had a couple of little fields and two daughters studying in Prague. He boasted: ‘I told that old rag to join or else her daughters will be kicked out of school. Girls, you’ll see that she’ll come tomorrow and join’. She came the next day and joined. Another clerk from the district department of agriculture was telling me his story: ‘Blanka, I got beaten today’. He went to a place called Ohavčí or something like that to persuade the people to join the collectives. Everybody had to join. They gave you that sort of an offer you couldn’t refuse. They said either you’ll join or else your family is going to suffer. He told me: ‘Blanka, they beat the hell out of me. They chased me with their scythes in processions when I tried to talk to them about joining the collective. I had to run for my life as they wanted to cut me to pieces.”

“I went there in 1955 – that was the worst time ever. When a farmer refused to hand in the demanded produce (rye, wheat or eggs) he was put before the court. The chairman of the Senate Dr. Přibil told me during the trial: ‘Blaničko, we can’t decide this. We’ll take a short break, I have to go to the little house for instructions’. The ‘little house’ was the Communist party secretariat next to the bus station. The rulings on the cases were done according to paragraph X, article A B C, article 3, etc. If the case was of an agricultural nature, it was according to a specific paragraph, but the sub-paragraph – meaning eviction, confiscation and I don’t know what else – was determined by the local Communist party here at the secretariat. So when the Communists gave the instruction to pass such and such a verdict, the judges ruled accordingly.”

“There was also a certain Mr. Panocha living there – a sort of a character from Jičín. He was a candy maker and made so-called ‘certle’. It was a sort of a glass candy – it smelled a bit of anise. He would sell them at the annual fair. He was a sort of a weird guy. He had a beard. Then he became the guard of the local gate. At noon and at nine o’clock in the evening, he would blow his trumpet so that the people knew what time it was.”