Josef Lacek

* 1931

  • "There was a National Socialist Party here, and my father was in that party. And that was the basis for me not being allowed to graduate. A friend from Sokol told my father, 'They don't want to let your son to take the exams, but they are looking for a teacher in Ostrava.' And I, who had despised school and ran away from it, was glad to get into that school in the end. They took everyone who applied. And it was far away. In Jihlava a pedagogical secondary school for teachers of primary schools was established."

  • "My brother, the stepbrother, says to me, 'If you eat that soup, the school will burn down by morning.' We had no meat or anything like that in the evening, just soup from lunch. That's how we ate. And my brother says to me, 'If you eat that plate of soup, the school will burn down.' But in the morning I got up, I ran to see, and the school was standing. 'You haven't eaten enough,' my brother says. That was one of the things that started to colour my life. And the other incident happened when I was a left-handed boy in the municipal school. They used to watch me do everything with my left hand. And that's what moved me up. And I got to fifth or sixth place in my class in that municipal school."

  • "My earliest memories from my childhood are of going to school, being called "krchňa" and having my hand tied to the desk with a rope. Only when I needed to go to the toilet, to od a number one or two, they would untie me. I would run away from school immediately." - "Why did they tie you up and why did they call you krchňa?" - "Because I did everything with my left hand. And that was literally a swear word when they called me krchňa. How I didn't like going to school! 'Why was I ever born if I have to go to that school,' I used to say."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Ostrava-Michálkovice, 10.04.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 01:21:41
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Ostrava-Michálkovice, 15.04.2024

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    délka: 58:03
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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    Ostrava-Michálkovice, 18.04.2024

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    délka: 01:02:34
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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As a 13-year-old, I felt what it was like to fear for my life

Josef Lacek around 1943
Josef Lacek around 1943
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Josef Lacek was born on 17 July 1931 in a Catholic family in Božejov near Pelhřimov in Vysočina. His father was a blacksmith there. As a left-handed child, he was forcibly converted to a right-handed person in the municipal school. At the end of the Second World War, German SS commandos searched for partisans in Božejov. Josef Lacek had to stand with his parents and brother for two hours against a wall under machine guns. After the war, his family was one of the minority in Božejov who did not join the communists. His father was a National Socialist and a member of Sokol. Josef Lacek graduated in 1951 from the pedagogical secondary school in Jihlava. As a teacher, he got a job placement in Ostrava, where he stayed. He graduated from a higher pedagogical school in Opava. Until his retirement, he taught mathematics, chemistry and military education at higher primary schools in Ostrava-Poruba. He refused to join the Communist Party and regularly attended church. He married and had two daughters. In 2024 he was living in his house in Ostrava-Michálkovice.