Jaromír Kerhart

* 1933

  • "Although the Gestapo came to us and searched our apartment, I don't know what they were looking for, but they were simply looking for something, weapons or documents. Contrary to my brother, who said that they dismantled our library, I know perfectly well that they only sealed it and that there were such books about Masaryk and such perfect books that were forbidden at the time. The library could be unscrewed from behind and my uncle unscrewed it, took out those books and put another in back in there. It was such an experience with the Gestapo, but when they were at our place, I was just at my parent's office. They kept me there, they didn't let me go, I don't know exactly what the Gestapo was doing in our house. I already came when my dad was being taken away. That was the last time I saw him. My brother, he was there. They only found a small sack, almonds in chocolate, Germans really liked sweets and there was a shortage of that in Germany. So that was the only thing they picked up. Almonds in chocolate. "

  • "I don't think it was as critical as it was then under the Communists. Because we did it ourselves, you didn't know, where you can come across someone, who sympathises with the regime and who would denounce you, if something suspicious was happening. So if I can skip a part of the narrative, we experienced it at home, when StB, it was in fact a communist Gestapo, came. Only due to such pettiness! My uncle had a book I think written in French or German. From a Russian who escaped from the Soviet Union and wrote about the situation in the Soviet Union. And this book got to Czechoslovakia, my uncle knew German, so he had it and read it. He talked about it in his family and his brother-in-law borrowed it, that he would read it because he came from Liberec, he also knew German, so he read it and returned it to him. But he liked to go for a beer and in Liberec, he talked about it, about this book, to the men drinking with hem. They had secret police everywhere in the pub, so it went wrong and they raided our house and they were looking for the book. And they really turned the apartment upside down. "

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    Praha, 12.11.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 58:33
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Almonds in chocolate

Jaromír Kerhart, 1953, historical portrait
Jaromír Kerhart, 1953, historical portrait
zdroj: archiv Jaromíra Kerharta

Jaromír Kerhart was born on October 3, 1933, into the family of a businessman from Poděbrady. He has a twin brother. Father Jaromír Kerhart was arrested in 1942 for participating in a fundraiser to help families who lost their loved ones in concentration camps or were arrested and imprisoned. He learned of his father‘s death in Auschwitz in February 1943. Before the end of the war, his mother married his father‘s widowed brother. After the war, Jaromír Kerhart studied at a school in Nymburk and later at a grammar school in Poděbrady. He entered the restored Junák and joined the water scouts. After graduation, he was not accepted to the university and had to join glassworks to work a year in a worker‘s profession. Through family acquaintances, he managed to get a degree in electrical engineering at CTU. He devoted his entire life to this field until his retirement in 1998