Jiří Poslední

* 1955

  • „ My parents and all my aunts lived through the WWII so everything was getting connected and they wondered what might come next. Whether there will be a run at the grocery store and the like. Because it was known that Russians were hungry. There’s one emotion I remember, it has the most impact at me, it was from Holýšov, to go to the Holýšov cemetery, you need to walk outside the village along the road from Plzeň to Domažlice. Today, there is a beautiful path but then, there was nothing, we walked on the shoulder of the road. I remember that there was a column of armoured vehicles. We walked so close to them. I could say they observed us. It was very uncomfortable feeling.“

  • „I still remember how nervous I was even in 1990 until the matters somewhat settled down. Because I remember that in Prague, it was pretty tumultous but comrade director Drážský decided that the Construction Machines factory should oranise a demonstration as well, to show that we want that socialism. So there was a demonstration. We went there and I don’t remember what the meeting point was, in some hotel, Beseda, I think but I am not sure. I remember that there was an attendance sheet we had to sign.We knew that it was different in Prague but in villages, nothing had changed, nor in Plzeň. So, some henchman of comrade Drážský came and told us: ‚Come on, boys, sign the attendance sheet so that we‘re done with it and the lunch can be served.’ Some of us did not even sign it.”

  • „I remember one more event that has stuck in my memory. The death of Leonid Brezhnev. As I had talked about that comrade Bažant, so, when there was Brezhnev’s burial going on and they couldn’t hold the ropes and dropped him pretty swiftly to the grave, it was in the morning. We were just having our snack. We sat in the workshop, we had such tables there. He [comrade Bažant] ran around like a madman although he did not have to and yelled at people: ‚Do stand up, you!‘ He came to our table as well and he growled like a tiger that we should stand up [in reverence].“

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    Plzeň , 07.03.2022

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We wandered around the somewhat mysterious building and wondered what was inside

Jiří Poslední in 1978
Jiří Poslední in 1978
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Jiří Poslední was born on the 16th of July in 1955 in Domažlice. For some time, he lived in Holýšov and since he was six, he has lived in nearby Chotěšov. In this peripheral village, he lived alongside Germans who were not expelled and their offsprings. Since moving in Chotěšov, he would walk by the local dominant, the former convent of Premonstratensian sisters, which would later play an important role in his life. He apprenticed as a machinist and served in the army in a secret air defence unit. Then he returned to his workplace in the Škoda factory but after a conflict with his superiors, he left. In 1989, he witnessed a pro-Communist demonstration which tried to upturn the development after the events of the 17th November. After the fall of the Communist régime, he participated in efforts to save and reconstruct the Chotěšov convent. He became the vice-chair of the Klášter Chotěšov organisation and later he became the manager of the building. Even after thirty years’ work, he keeps investing his energy to the reconstruction and revival of the convent. In 2022, he was living in Chotěšov.