Ladislav Jaworek

* 1946

  • "In the sorting department, women mostly worked as spreaders on the bale and sorting plants. Of course there was dust. Because when the coke gets crushed in the sorting process, it's just dust. So there was a high level of dust. It was measured. There was a premium for dustiness. People were grateful for whatever they were given. There was a heat premium on the furnaces, on the batteries. When it was 1,250 degrees in the furnace, in the summertime, the people on those batteries got a hard time too, because you walked on the ceiling of the batteries. The environment was like that. It was hot, even though people were drinking and everything. It was bad for your health. Then they discovered benzo-pyrene. That's why people retired early at fifty-eight. It was legislated."

  • "Whether it was an ammonia plant, whether it was a gas station, whether it was a pressure station, everywhere something smelled because it was developed from coke oven gas. The coke oven gas went through the condensing plant and through the gasoline plants and through the various facilities where the derivatives were caught. Tar, ammonia, ammonium sulphate. So there was a different smell everywhere, as they say. The worst was probably on the coke batteries. It was no bed of roses job there either. Because until mechanization came along, for example, when opening doors, and I remember it like today, everything was opened by hand with these keys that were put on. And it was quite physically demanding for those guys."

  • "We were repairing various machines or preparing infantry. Because there was an infantry system at the army [Coke Plant of the Czechoslovak Army]. There are two systems of coke production. Ostrava had a loose system, Karviná had a ramming system. It was necessary to prepare the ramming machines and various repair work, such as preparing the screens for the sorting plants, preparing the crushers. Simply various works. The more work one went through, the more one knew. I also worked in the chemical plant in the ammonia plant. Wherever they needed us, they'd assign us boys. There were oilers. Even the welder needed a helper. By the war, we were circulating all over the coke plant. And it was the only opportunity to get to know the whole coke plant and learn the most from the older locksmiths."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Ostrava, 16.09.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:02:20
  • 2

    Ostrava, 30.09.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:23:46
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It was no bed of roses anywhere at the coking plant. Even the retired miners were shaking their heads.

Ladislav Jaworek, about 1963
Ladislav Jaworek, about 1963
zdroj: Ladislav Jawork archive

Ladislav Jaworek was born on July 16, 1946 in Dolní Marklovice, a part of Petrovice near Karviná. He grew up in a Catholic family in Karviná-Nové Město. His father worked for over thirty years as a coker at the coke battery in Karviná. He trained as a locksmith for the Coke Plant of the Czechoslovak Army. He graduated from an apprenticeship in Opava. He is a witness of coke production and coke plant operation under the communist regime. In August 1968 he protested against the entry of Warsaw Pact troops. His father was expelled from the Communist Party because of his opposition to the occupation. After the decline and closure of the coke plant in 1997, the witness moved to the maintenance of the Karviná Czechoslovak Army Mine, where he worked until his retirement. In 2022, he was living in Karviná.