In the army we were hidden
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.