Václav Popp

* 1940

  • "I had access there and I was a hunting manager in that part for some time, because civilians from Planá had access there. They were employees of the border guard units, they were militiamen and so on. It was simply the hunting ground of the Horní Planá Hunting Association... And the commander Pechoušek, who lives here in Planá, asked me many times. And I said, 'Well, do you know why those people (I had those work units deployed there), why they didn't run away?' And he always shrugged his shoulders. 'Because every one of them felt they were Czech and Slovak. They were proud to be. That's why they never fled.' On the contrary, I know several cases, I could name them, where their own border guards ran away."

  • "The forests are disrupted by frequent logging. It's hard to say. I think that the Šumava is called Šumava because of the spruce trees that rustled here. Everybody prefers beech, but nobody realizes that the economic tree species is spruce. Beech is of no use here. Beech has no heartwood, and because here it is already at altitude and there are quite severe frosts, it forms what is called a false heartwood. And such wood, whatever is done to it, is not possible to bend over the steam. Economical tree species is spruce and fir. And economists today don't realize that, and they kill spruce. Spruce is gone because... It's called bark beetle. Bark beetle doesn't feed on bark, bark beetle feeds on bast, it only lives under the bark. But you cannot feed it. You must kill the bark beetle. And what's happened in this state is that protection has been neglected or not done at all."

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    Horní Planá, 24.06.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:39:36
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Everyone pulls on the same rope, but on different ends

Václav Popp as an employee of the Horní Planá Forestry office at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s
Václav Popp as an employee of the Horní Planá Forestry office at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Václav Popp was born on 25 August 1940 in Lažiště in Prachatice district. In February 1946, the family moved to Horní Plané, forty kilometres away, as part of the resettlement of the border area after the expulsion. The original owners were no longer in their house, as it was the headquarters of the American army. Václav Popp spent his entire working life in various positions in the Military Forests, and his work became his hobby. In 1957, he received his first pass to a restricted zone, which he held for the duration of his occupation. However, he never considered using his pass to escape beyond the border, which was within his reach. He felt responsible towards his family and considered himself first and foremost a Czech citizen. He looks back on his lifelong profession with gratitude and pride. He also contributed greatly to the protection of the Šumava forests from bark beetles in the Boletice military area. In 2021 Václav Popp lived in Horní Plané.