Josef Wála

“My second uncle was a confectioner. The poor man, he bore the consequences, too, but it was not his fault at all. All his efforts were in vain, everything got lost and destroyed. My other uncle was Mr. Hlavín, this is his butcher’s shop right here. Well, he had two sons, they were older than me. And it all got lost, too, all of it… My other uncle was baker Mr. Diesel. And this baker Diesel had his shop on Žižka Street, when you walk up Žižka Street and there is the furniture shop on the corner. And one corner below that, that was my uncle’s house. He had a bakery, a steam-operated bakery, the largest in the town. And do you know what they accused him of? That he baked bread for Germans. Well, when he had the largest bakery in the town, what else was he to do? But he had plenty of flour left and he regularly baked for our people, too, of course. And since he was able to sell without food ration coupons, without extra supplements, he was selling even without the coupons. And one day – I only know it because others have told me, I was not present there, but it is true – all of a sudden an inspection was to come to his shop. But he had been informed about it beforehand, there were some honest people, and they warned him: ‘Be careful, an inspection is coming to you.’ Grégr’s aunt therefore sent a wagon and horses there from the little chapel and they loaded all the flour that was left onto that wagon and covered it with some tarpaulin and they took it to the Grégr family’s barn. That would not have been possible during the communist era, because someone would have informed upon them, you know. Well, they took the flour away, and when the inspection was over, they brought it back again. And it was all right. And the people received bread, no matter what. Even if they did not have food ration coupons. But do you know what they did to him afterward? They accused him that he supplied bread to Germans, and therefore the communists evicted him from the house and they forcibly relocated him to Mirotice.”