Milan Ján

* 1952

  • "It was August 21st and my wife has a cousin who celebrated her birthday. And we were in Hanušovice, but we stayed a bit longer at that birthday party. We walked from Hanušovice to Alojzov and came to Raškov and suddenly cars, lights, tanks against us. So, we went in the ditch. In the field. Because they zigzagged. It was a long convoy. It could have been a mile long. Because they caught us on the plain from Raškov to Hanušovice, they caught us there, so we walked from there and that we went through Bohdíkov. We were scared, so we zigzagged where we could, but the convoy was really big. We thought that they might be going to a training, because there were also a barracks in Jeseník and Mikulovice. It wasn't until the next day that we knew what was going on."

  • "We were about five boys there, we had a bucket of lime and brushes and we wrote various slogans: 'Go home, Ivan, Natasha is waiting for you. We don't want you here! 'And the class 5B always came and smeared it again, shone a flashlight into the grain, we always lay there. They were yelling at us: 'Get out, we know you're there! 'But no one dared to follow us. Because they already had experience from Hostice, one lost his teeth and to this day they have not figured out who. So, they didn't follow us and they left, and we wrote something down again. And we also wrote: "Dubček will make you pay for that" and such. And in the morning, the asphalt was totally white from the turn from the crossing to the forest, and everyone wondered why."

  • "Then the sixty-eighth year came and there was Antonín Kotraš from Klášterec with me, he also went with me for the signature, and the masters mixed white paint, made a template one meter big and we climbed the concrete fence from the gatehouse to the end of the factory. and we wrote: "Dubček, Černý, Svoboda is the future of the nation." Everyone took a picture. And in three weeks they called us saying that they had mixed the paint, that we have to climb the fence again and paint over it. And I said that I did not agree. If the Russians leave us, I would go to delete it, but otherwise not. And we have already done the writings on the roads. Also, the class 5B were painting it over, and it went so far that I refused. So, the headmaster called me, at that time there was a director Mutina from Jindřichov, and he told me that if I would not paint over it, they would stop subsidizing my studies and that I could start a two-shift operation with calenders. It ironed the paper through those rollers. For the morning and afternoon shifts. So, I said, 'If you want, I quit here. I won't do it.' He told me straight away that if he dismissed me from that studies, he guarantees that they would not accept me anywhere else."

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    Šumperk, 05.09.2021

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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I was not even allowed to study during communism

Milan Ján in the military uniform, 1972
Milan Ján in the military uniform, 1972
zdroj: archive of the witness

Milan Ján was born on June 11, 1952 in Doloplazy (Olomouc district) to Anna and František Ján. At the age of fifteen, he began his apprenticeship in the Valašské Meziříčí glassworks, from where, however, he run away because of bullying and favoritism of the children of communist celebrities. Thanks to his father František, he got to the Aloisov Paper Mill in Bohdíkov as a subsidized apprentice. A year later, in response to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, he and one of his colleagues wrote anti-occupation slogans all over a long factory wall. When prompted by the paper mill‘s management to remove the writings, Milan responded, saying it would not be removed until the Soviets left the country. Because of this, he was prevented from obtaining an apprenticeship until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. After leaving the Alojzov paper mills, he worked as a forest worker for ten years and then until 1989 in Zetor Hanušovice. During the fall of the communist regime, he helped establish the Civic Forum in Hanušovice. In 1992, Milan Ján trained as a mechanic - repairman. Thanks to his hobby and experience with dog training, he became the chairman of the Hanušovice Kennel Club in the first half of the 1990s. He then used his knowledge in this field as a dog handler for the municipal police in Šumperk, where he served for sixteen years before retiring. In 2021, Milan Ján was married to Maria, with whom he raised three children, Pavlína, Maria and Romana.