"A car arrived, for example an ambulance or another car. It stopped, parked, and no one came out of the car from inside. So we went to look there, opened the door and there was a dead driver."
"We had a teacher there, his name was Pařízek, and punished us so much that you had to put your hands like that and he beat us with a cane over our hands. And we've been smiling there many times, and so on, since we've seen the cane flying, we automatically dodged. And he always said, 'Don't worry, boy, what are you afraid of?' And then he got a cane beating. They had cane sticks. They did not go without it."
"We were sitting by the stove because it was cold. It was already dark outside. So a bomb fell a short distance from us. Whether it was the Russian, the Red Army or the German, we did not know. Because it was on a hillside, when it exploded, it moved our roof.”
It was not easy to be poor during the First Republic
Jaroslav Hutárek was born on June 8, 1928 as one of eleven descendants to Maria and Josef Hutárek. He spent his childhood in Prštice in Moravia. They lived modestly but happily. They only felt real misery when Dad fell ill and were unable to provide him with adequate medical care. His father died in 1937. After his death, the family suffered serious financial problems. Among others, the local priest helped them to cope with the difficult situation. At the end of the Second World War, part of the Red Army staff settled in their cottage. She and her brother helped the soldiers in Prštice at the chateau, where they took care of the wood, but also of the dead and wounded. In his story-telling, he also recalled the bombing that took place in the immediate vicinity of their house. When the war ended, he trained as a carpenter and after basic military service he joined the army, where he remained until 1989. They often moved to work with his wife Eliška and later their daughter Dana. Eventually, they settled in Brno, where Jaroslav has lived until 2020.
Vyprávění Jaroslava Hutárka natočily a zpracovaly pro projekt Příběhy našich sousedů Eliška Mráčková, Kateřina Jedličková, Barbora Langová, Valerie Minksová a Sára Pokorná ze ZŠ Pavlovská pod vedením paní učitelky Hany Plškové.