From the family of Sokol members and resistance fighters
Jaroslav Hejcman was born February 13, 1934 in Prague. His father Jaroslav Hejcman (1905) worked as a clerk and he met his wife-to-be Milada (1909) in the Sokol sports organization. It was through Sokol members that Jaroslav‘s father got involved in the resistance movement, which he joined in autumn 1941 at the latest. Among other activities he was also supporting the paratroopers. After the assassination of Heydrich he was arrested on July 15, 1942, and two weeks later, Jaroslav‘s mother was arrested as well. Both his parents were executed by the Nazis in the Mauthausen concentration camp on October 24, 1942 together with other resistance fighters. In August 1942 eight-year-old Jaroslav was taken to a children‘s home in Jenerálka in Prague and in April 1944 he was transported together with other children of resistance fighters to Svatobořice where Germans interned children whose parents had been arrested following their involvement in the resistance movement. As the war front was approaching Svatobořice at the end of the war, the children were taken from Svatobořice to Planá nad Lužnicí where they eventually experienced the liberation. Jaroslav was subsequently taken care of and raised by his father‘s parents. He apprenticed in the ČKD factory and then he studied a secondary technical school. He worked in the ČKD factory and later as a technician in the steelworks in Kladno. Jaroslav Hejcman lives in Prague.