Karel Krušina

* 1938

  • "Despite all the difficulties, my mother renewed the line and in 1946 she started operating the buses again. My brother has already obtained a driver's license. In the 1946-47, it was much better, because there were already a lot of passengers, mainly workers in factories in Prague, students in schools and so on. So in terms of transport profitability, it was quite decent. Mom decided, because we were renting, to build a house with garages. She had a project done, she got two plots, one for the house, the other for the garages. The construction was prepared, the foundations were dug up, a well was dug up, the material was imported. Unfortunately, the events of February and nationalization came. The construction was stopped. After nationalization came expropriation, when the mother received a decree that everything that was hers is no longer hers, but a property of the state. Even what she inherited from her parents in Moravia. So we were without a living, we were without a home, because my mother wanted to return to Moravia. "

  • "Dad and Mom listened to foreign radio, which did not escape the attention of my older brother, who was thirteen at the time. And under the influence of these reports and information that Tito's partisans are in the mountains of Yugoslavia, my brother and his two friends in their boyish naivety decided to leave for Yugoslavia. Because my brother knew well the border between the Sudetenland, Svitavy and Letovice, they devised a plan to take the train to Semanin, then cross the border to Svitavy and buy tickets to Belgrade for stamps. They waited for the express train to arrive at midnight, which drove from Berlin via Ústí nad Orlicí to the Balkans. However, they were tired, fell asleep and were awakened by a military patrol that accompanied them down below the Gestapo station. The boys were interrogated there, given a big spanking, and my brother even lost some teeth there. Nobody heard about them at home for three days. Three days later, the news arrived at the gendarme station in Újezd that they were on the Gestapo in Svitavy for their parents to come for them. "

  • "After the year 1950, we lived in Stvolová, in that small farm. Mom took the rented fields back and we started farming. But the union collective farm was established and they came to my mother to put the field in the collective farm. But my mother barely planted the fields and we were expecting a harvest, we also had some animals, chickens, a goat, rabbits and so on ... she didn't want to give them the fields. And so she had to do it, they took away our food stamps. At the beginning, all citizens received the food stamps, but when they took them away from us and everything was rationed, we were actually without the opportunity to buy something for three months. "

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    Hradec Králové, 13.05.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:24:29
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The communists have hurt us a lot. But thanks to them, I met my wife

Karel Krušina, historical photography. without date
Karel Krušina, historical photography. without date
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Karel Krušina was born on September 21, 1938 to Gustav and Aloisia Krušinová in Koloděje near Prague. The father had to enlist in the army two days after his son‘s birth, as a general mobilization was announced. The family operated a bus service, in which the father continued after returning from mobilization until 1943, when the Nazi authorities revoked his concession due to the rejection of their offer to transport ammunition. Krušina thus lost their livelihood and moved to his mother‘s parents in Stvolová in the Svitavy region on the border of the Protectorate and the Sudetenland, where they remained until the end of the war. Shortly after the war, father Gustav Krušina died and Gustav‘s mother decided to stay with her sons at her parents‘ house. After a while, however, she moved back to Koloděje with her children. She applied for the return of the bus concession, which she did achieve after a long struggle with the authorities, and started her own business. The company began to prosper and Aloisie Krušinová wanted to build a new house for the family, including garages for buses. However, the year 1948 came and the Communists took over the government. The unfinished house, garages, road transport, and even the farm inherited from her parents in Stvolová‘s mother were nationalized. At least she managed to save her home in Stvolová, where she moved back with her sons. Gustav‘s mother tried to restore the farm and the fields were sown. Soon, however, a unified agricultural cooperative was formed in the village, and officials called Aloisia Krušinová to join it. She refused, and the whole family lost their food stamps for three months. Shortly afterwards, in 1953, a monetary reform took place, and Krušinas thus lost all the savings that were to be paid for her younger son Karel‘s studies at the automobile school in Mladá Boleslav. He immediately had to finish school and start working to help his mother support the family. He started working and learning at the Sandrik company in Moravská Třebová, where he remained until his retirement. With a vision of a better life, the witness joined the Communist Party in 1960. However, due to disagreement with the entry of the occupying forces in 1968, the officials expelled him from the party and because of that he also experienced bullying in the workplace. However, he moved to another department and the situation calmed down. In 1989, he briefly participated in the activities of the Civic Forum in Moravská Třebová, and soon withdrew from politics. Karel Krušina has two sons and in 2020 he lived with his wife in Moravská Třebová in a house he built in 1968 on his own.