Jaroslav Loukota

* 1945

  • “I’ll tell you one thing that happened in ’84 or ’85, I’m not quite sure when it was now, when we went to Volhynia on a package tour, and my aunt and one cousin were believers. They attended some Protestant church there. And we got them – because I had some contacts, friends came here from the West from Switzerland and took Christian literature with them, so I go them Ukrainian bibles, and we had them with us, to hand over to my aunt or cousin there. And during one of the checks at the border, I think it was somewhere in Chop, or whichever way we went, I don’t quite remember now, they found them in my brother’s bag. So they stripped him down to his pants, he paid a 300-rouble fine, and they confiscated the lot. So we witnessed things like that with Christianity as well...”

  • “We were married on 7 September. We had a home ready for us in Kunín. And the wedding was in Nový Jičín. As we were going home from the wedding, Russian soldiers were driving around in their GAZ trucks, throwing out bundles of newspapers. The people passing by on the pavements would immediately take them and set them on fire. So on our way home there were bonfires burning alongside the road. We drove back in such a glory of flames, what a way to end our wedding day.”

  • “A certain Mr Adam Esterkes and Václav Rivec lived in our village. When the Banderites and the Germans were on the rampage, catching and shooting Jews, they made themselves a dug-out somewhere in the forest and hid there. When these two men were out somewhere, at the toilet or something, the Germans or the Banderites – I don’t know which – came across their hideout and shot the whole of their family. The men then fled to the village to my grandmother’s house, and she and our uncle, Mum’s brother, and my parents, sheltered them for a year.”

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    Olomouc, 31.08.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 01:21:08
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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Mum knew from Volhynia what Communists do to farmers. But people didn’t believe her

Jaroslav Loukota, early 1960s
Jaroslav Loukota, early 1960s
zdroj: archives of the witness

Jaroslav Loukota was born in the village of Malovaná near Lutsk in Volhynia, present-day Ukraine, on 16 January 1945. Her family had a small farm there. His father Jaroslav also worked as a wheelwright; his mother Olga earned a little extra as a seamstress. During World War II a number of his relatives, including his father, joined the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps. Two uncles died during the Carpatho-Dukla Operation, and his father suffered a serious head injury and spent the rest of his life as a disabled war veteran. The witness’s grandmother sheltered a Volhynian Jew, Adam Esterkes, during the war. In 1947 the Loukotas decided to repatriate to Czechoslovakia. They settled down in Kunín near Nový Jičín, where they were given a farm confiscated from deported Germans with 12 hectares of land. They were bitterly impacted by collectivisation. Although their father joined the newly established Kunín Agricultural Cooperative, he renounced membership due to some bad experience and briefly maintained an independent farm. Exaggerated levies on farm yields caused the family to give up farming. After training, the witness worked as a labourer in various enterprises in the region. He converted to Evangelicalism. He married and raised three children with his wife. During the normalisation period, he helped distribute Christian literature and samizdat. After 1989 he started doing business. He has been regularly visiting Volynhia since 1985. As of 2020, he lives in Kunín.