Rostislav Novák

* 1928

  • "When the front reached us, the Germans retreated slowly and then barricaded themselves in Břest. As a boy, I saw their mortars around the village. On the way out of Hulín where St. Anna is, there stood a queue of vehicles. Those were the Czechoslovaks. They would shoot at hares from their submachine guns. But in Břest, the Germans barricaded themselves and were shooting at each other. And one of the soldiers was poking the boys with a stick so that they would go and take their turn. They didn't want to go, they were fed up with that, those soldiers."

  • “It was the 16th of April in 1945. From the direction of the sugar mill, three airplanes flew. I watched them and suddenly, boom, boom, boom. There were low voltage power lines and one of the bombs hit them and tore them. I kept standing, I didn’t know what to do. Then another bomb fell and tore apart. This one pushed me to the ground. I saw the roofs rising. The roof would go up and then it would fall back down. What a horror! Eight dead. My dad was killed and my sister’s leg was torn off. For all her life, since she was 16, she lived without that leg.”

  • “He was in jail during the WWII. He was a machinist in a plant where grenades were assembled. He thought that if he would have made something a bit shorter, they wouldn’t blow up.” “He was a saboteur? He sabotaged the production?” “They found out somehow, the Germans, they measured it or something so they locked him up. But he didn’t stay in jail for long. Only for a year.” “And do you know where he served?” “In Prague, that’s where he was lcoked up. And after the war, when he came back home, he said: ‘What am I supposed to do?’ The borderlands were opened [to resettlement]. And he told his brother: ‘Look, Franta, let’s go have a look at the borderlands. Hulín is too small for us…‘ They went there and they returned. Nothing. They went there and the train only went to Šternberk. So they thought, let’s go and look at the main square. So they went there and resistance fighters were assembled there. And they recognised the head of the resistance unit, they were in jail with him. He asked: ‘What are you up to?’ - ‘Eh, I could use a machinist shop.’ - ‘What, a machinist shop? I’ll give you a hotel!’ - ‘But, but, I can’t, a hotel, I don’t know what to do with it!’ So they pushed a liqueur production onto him. And Franta got a smallholding in Šternberk.“

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Pravčice, 28.05.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:01:50
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I saw the roofs rising

Rostislav Novák at work, during about 1960's
Rostislav Novák at work, during about 1960's
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Rostislav Novák was born on the 13th of April in 1928 in Hulín to a family of Silvestr, a raiway employee, and Anna, née Smutková. He grew up in humble circumstances. Along with his sister Božena, they frequently moved as his father was transferred often. They lived for a short time in Hulín, Brodek u Přerova and Lidečko near Valašské Klobouky – here he attended the second part of the basic school. At the end of WWII, they moved back to Hulín. In April 1945, his father Silvestr Novák perished here during an air raid and his sister lost a leg due to injury. In the Skrat company, Rostislav apprenticed as an electrician and when he was employed in the Pilana factory in Hulín where he met his future wife. They lived in Pravčice where they raised their two daughters. Since the 1960‘s until his retirement, Rostislav worked as a washing machine serviceman. After the 1968 Warsaw Pact armies occupation, he resigned his Communist Party membership. In his free time, he bred homing pigeons and kept bees. He is still living in his house in Pravčice.