RNDr. Rudolf Jiříček

“The first thing that the Party members of the Communist Party did at the faculty in Brno was that they renamed Masaryk University to Purkyně University. People then rather started calling it Brno University instead. All the commies, especially the young ones, kicked out all the old professors who were renowned all over Europe. My professor Karel Zapletal, who was the dean of the entire faculty and an excellent geologist, was removed from his position as a dean and he was even expelled from the department. The vice-rector Krejčí was removed from his position, too. They got everywhere, People like Kokeš, Štelcl, Vojtek, Laštůvka… were doing this. They turned the university into a Soviet gulag and they totally destroyed lives of its former employees. Professor Folkmannová died during these events, and my friend, docent Jedlička, died right in front of his students at the age of forty-three. It was only because of the fact that his parents had him study theology. But he had quit his studies anyway. I was accused of allegedly leading an anti-state movement with foreigners, and that was because I was teaching people from Arabic countries, Greece or Yugoslavia. They arrested me and they led me to the rector’s office where professor Trávníček and his whole communist council announced to me that they would write me a recommendation for work in uranium mines as a punishment. I replied that this would be already for the second time that he was punishing our family. He asked me how come? My great-uncle was professor Vymazal from Brno; he knew thirty languages. Professor Trávníček, who was described by Hašek as lieutenant Dub, the one who led our soldiers to the front lines, was a very zealous supporter of Austria-Hungary at first, and then Germany, and he had informed upon my great-uncle that he had not stood up during the Austrian anthem, and my great-uncle was sent to the Špilberk prison as a result. ‘The police searched for you and they did not find you, and then there was the German Reich and you supported the Reich and then you joined the Communist Party.’ But they expelled me and I had to leave my job at the faculty; however, they did not forget this thing about him, and he died shortly after.”

“Docent Jedlička was a lecturer from the department of botany, and it was with him that we established a new programme of palaeontology. He was about forty-three years old when he was accused during the purges in 1958. His parents originally had him study a school of theology, but he then chose to transfer to natural sciences, and he attained a docent’s degree and got a docent’s position. Unfortunately, the communists bullied him and threatened him with imprisonment and expulsion from the faculty so much that what eventually happened was that one day he was lecturing, the hall was full of students, and a communist committee was sitting there at the back. They had told him that they would interrogate him after the lecture was over – and Jedlička then suddenly collapsed and he was dead.”

“Another one took place on November 21, 1944. Groups of American airplanes were flying towards Brno. Several soldiers from the army train unfortunately started shooting at them. The Americans turned back and they dropped 451 bombs on Hodonín. About 179 people died, 900 were left homeless and wounded. It was horrible. They destroyed a part of Hodonín during the war. With a friend of mine, we were near the River Kyjovka and from there we were observing the din of the bombs falling on Hodonín and smoke coming up from the city. Germans were bringing prisoners from Uherské Hradiště there to deactivate time bombs: a prisoner who deactivated a bomb was released. These were cruel things. My father and his friend from Mikulčice were running away from there, and this friend overtook him and ran ahead, and a bomb exploded behind a corner and this friend’s head was blown off. I also remember that we were going to hide in the neighbours’ cellar in Mikulčice during the air raids, but the cellar was located under a barn full of hay, which was quite dangerous. An oil tank train was passing through Moravia one day and it was attacked by twin-fuselage air planes somewhere between Mikulčice and Nová Ves, and they blasted it into pieces. The oil from the tanks was running down the slope and people were collecting it in pails and carrying home. The oil then hardened and asphalt remained in the fields. When the war front was passing, we were hiding in another cellar, I was eleven at that time, and I was looking after a baby girl, a daughter of mill owners, and I was pushing her pram. The airplanes dropped incendiary bombs on this mill because they thought that the building was a residence of some Nazis.”