"They said that [in 1948] people were exposed in the window who had, for example, a supply of substances. They were shown as pests of socialism. That's why it pains me greatly when someone remembers how beautiful it was. When they remember how nice everything was under communism at this time. Really, people forget. They forget. It hurts me when people forget. That everything was free, that it cost a few pennies, it's not true at all. They can't do the math. How hard it was to farm. My wife's grandfather had a big garden. I know there were tractors or some such machines elsewhere. Me and Dr. Rádl, he was a well-known lawyer there, we were harnessed in the plow and Grandpa and the plow behind us. It was impossible to buy something like that. Nowadays if you look at the prices of those machines for use, it's ten times cheaper than it was then. And it wasn't even then. It was unthinkable to bring something like that here."
"I was investigated on that 'Justice'. The young comrade investigator asked me four times practically the same questions: 'What do you work in, where did you hide the pounds, where are you buried and how did you get through the Ministry, what exams did you take to be able to go...' So I told it all the same. They asked about an acid, a certain chemical that seemed to have some explosive use, and I was working in glass. These are non-oxide glasses based on arsenic, selenium, sulphur, and other substances were put in. That's what I was working in, measuring optical properties, and I never said anything else because I was just telling the truth. When the last interrogation took place, a supervisor came and said, 'It's good.' And after that, it wasn't the secret service that pressured me, but the personnel officer: 'When are you going to enroll, comrade?' Well, the personnel officer was a down-to-earth kind of guy. He knew how to sharpen a scythe and would offer to do it. He also tried to persuade me, but my wife wouldn’t have approved of me going away for four years, so the idea fizzled out. They mentioned Kuwait, but who knows. And I said, it would have been paid for dearly. Anyone who went there had to take on some kind of commitment. I would have had to inform. They didn’t say it outright, but it was pretty clear. That’s why I didn’t go. They didn’t tell me I’d be tasked with it, but it was just understood."
"Two roads meet there. One leads from Chotěboř and one from Havlíčkův Brod. There was a corner house at the crossroads. I remember when it was May 9th, we went to church, there were May devotions. But in the meantime, there were tanks there, which we observed, and it went on for some time, and then the shooting started. A column of Germans came out of a side road, a lower class road, and the battle started. We hid in this corner house. At first we were just in the barn, there were broken bags falling on us. Then we ran to the barn, which was already vaulted, and it was safer there. People were crying, praying, I have it all in front of me."
Zdeněk Cimpl was born on 5 April 1938 in Habry, Vysočina. He comes from six children. On May 9, 1945, he experienced a battle between Soviet and German army units. He and his family went into hiding for several days. Afterwards, two Red Army majors lived with them for some time. After the war, the family moved to Kolín, where the father got a job as an auditor in the prosecutor‘s office. In 1953, he left here because of the inhumane practices he had witnessed. He graduated in solid state physics from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University. In 1960 he married and got a job at the University of Chemical Technology in Pardubice. Gradually, he and his wife Jana had two sons. In 1968 he signed the manifesto Two Thousand Words. After 1970 he wrote a regret under pressure in the context of the vetting of university teachers. He continued to work at the university, but was not able to habilitate until after 1989. In 1991 he became head of the physics department for ten years. In 1992-1996 he was vice-dean at the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the University of Pardubice. In 1992 he was appointed professor. He was widowed in 2001, remarried a year later and moved to Rokytnice nad Jizerou. He worked at the University of Pardubice and in Hradec Králové. In 2024 he lived with his wife Milada in the Home for the Elderly in Rokytnice nad Jizerou. We were able to record his story thanks to the support of the town of Rokytnice nad Jizerou.
The corner house where Zdeněk Cimpl and his sister hid after the battle between Soviet and German troops broke out on 9 May 1945. The corner of Na Páchu Street and the road to Chotěboř. Mr. Láska had a shop with paper goods in the house. The road leads from Havlíčkův Brod, where Soviet tanks came from.
The corner house where Zdeněk Cimpl and his sister hid after the battle between Soviet and German troops broke out on 9 May 1945. The corner of Na Páchu Street and the road to Chotěboř. Mr. Láska had a shop with paper goods in the house. The road leads from Havlíčkův Brod, where Soviet tanks came from.
