Josef Mokrý

* 1925

  • “We were shocked when we saw that they were bringing entire truckloads full of books to the courtyard of the barracks. These were beautiful, often very valuable and unique books from the libraries of the monasteries that had been shut down. They took every book from the monastic libraries, loaded it on trucks and took it to the barracks. There, they used it for heating the barracks. They burned the books! In the seminary we had a library, too. Of course, they took it all away as well. In those seminary library, we also had Jan Hus’ writings, but they were hand written, not printed – a hand-written copy. It was priceless”

  • “Mr. Archbishop Beran was steadfast in his belief that the communist rule would not last for long. He gave it a maximum of two years. Mr. Archbishop thought that everything would collapse in short time. So he ordered the spiritual to take the last two classes to the ordination and then no more.”

  • "We were forced to work on Sunday, too. We did all sorts of stuff. They gave us every possible tough job that they could. We, the priests, we were meted out extra working hours and harsher treatment than the rest of the men. We had to get up an hour earlier than the others. We were woken up at five o’clock in the morning while the others could still stay in bed and only had to get up at six o’clock. At six o'clock, we already marched out into the woods to work while the others were still only being woken up.”

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    Ronov nad Doubravou, 26.10.2012

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In the army we were hidden

contemporary photograph
contemporary photograph

Josef Mokrý was born on 19 December, 1925, in Nížkov in the region of Vysočina (Highlands Region). He lived with his parents and eleven siblings in a house with a small farm where since his early childhood, he was required to help. After completing elementary school, he moved to Prague in order to attend a grammar school run by the archbishopric. Due to the Nazi occupation, however, he had to change schools a number of times and in 1944 he was sent to work in Germany, where he worked in agriculture at a farm. There he spent the entire year. After the liberation in May 1945, he completed the last year of grammar school and began attending a seminary in Hradec Králové. While he was taking part in the seminary, he witnessed the interventions of the communists in the church, false accusations, arrests and other injustices. In 1950 - along with other students – he was secretly ordained a priest. In the same year, he was drafted for compulsory military service at the so-called “auxiliary technical battalions” (PTP). By coincidence, he got the opportunity to shortly work in the parish of Přibyslav. Despite the fact that his service lasted only a month, Josef Mokrý managed to find out that the parishes were actually run by the state secretaries. The service at the PTP was very strenuous, especially for priests. Josef Mokrý worked mostly in the woods or on construction sites. In 1953, he was fortunately allowed to retire to civilian life and thus he was finally able to work as a chaplain in Skuteč. In the following years, he worked in a number of other places before he was finally able to take the place of a deceased priest in Ronov nad Doubravou. In this small village in the Pardubice Region, Josef Mokrý has been serving since 1963 until today.