“Hundreds of bombers were coming back one day and they were dropping their unused bombs on some buildings. They noticed that we had a transformer which supplied our factory with electricity. At that time we were taking a break up on a hill and we wished that they would drop something on the factory. When the bombs started falling down, they were making whistling sound. We got scared that they were actually bombing us, but they were targeting the transformer. When the bombing was over, I was curious and I went there to see the place. There were craters around the transformer, but the transformer itself stayed intact. We thus lost our hope that we would get a day off.”
“I worked in an aircraft factory. German foremen taught us how to operate the machines and they were very good. They instructed us how to operate a semiautomatic turning lathe. Once you set it, you could then just stand by and keep an eye on it and insert the material. The foremen mostly came from Hamburg and in 1944 most of them realized that the war was lost. We spoke with them quite openly and we cursed the Germans and everything. There were also Dutch people working in the factory, and they taught me how to make defective parts. They did not place the defective pieces on the table where somebody could check them, but they would throw them in a rubbish bin. This was their way of sabotaging the work. I learnt it from them and I would always place one good piece at the end. When an inspector came, he would usually only check the last piece and he didn’t try to check the others. I was thus able to pass, even though I had made a great number of defective parts.”
“He told me a password and I identified myself with this password to one man in Prachatice. This man himself wanted to stay safe, and he brusquely asked me what I wanted from him. But then he came to meet me on a motorcycle and he took me right to the border line in the Šumava Mountains. There were German smugglers who were smuggling our cigarettes which could be easily exchanged for food in Germany. They knew Šumava thoroughly. I asked them if I could join them. They said no problem, and they only asked me if I had any weapon. In case we would run into a policeman, for example, they would defend themselves. They had revolvers. I told them that I did not want to shoot anybody; I just wanted to get over the border. There were several of us. Some lady was walking in front of me. It was raining and it was pitch dark and several times I nearly got lost. We walked in a line and sometimes I saw the last person in front of me, and sometimes not, and sometimes I could only hear a twig crack under her feet. I said to this lady that I was afraid that I would lose them. She promptly took out her scarf, she tied one end around her finger and I tied the other end to my finger. We spent the whole night crossing the border and we kept walking until we reached Freyung.”
Jaromír Navrátil was born on August 24, 1924 in Dolní Dlouhá Loučka as the eldest of eight children. His father was a police officer and he and his family had to move frequently. Jaromír thus spent his childhood in several places in Moravia. He graduated from the trade academy and in early 1944 he and his fellow students with the year of birth 1924 were sent to Germany to do forced labour. Jaromír worked in an aircraft factory in the town Pössneck in Thuringia until December 1944. After the war he taught at the Masaryk Elementary Special School in Hodonín. After February 1948 he knew that he would no longer be allowed to do his job freely. He therefore decided overnight that he would escape to the West and in October 1948 in the Šumava Mountains he crossed the border to Germany together with a group of smugglers and about ten other people. Thanks to the invitation by the Catholic congregation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate he eventually got to Canada via Germany and Luxembourg and he spent about one year studying theology there. Jaromír then lived in several Canadian cities and he did many different jobs. He married Czech Ludmila Bouzová and he regarded Canada as his second home. Nevertheless, he missed his homeland and he eventually decided to return. Since 2010 he has lived in the Czech Republic again. Jaromír Navrátil died in 2019.
