Zdeněk Baueršíma

* 1934

  • "Udělali na ně křivé obvinění, že chtěli otrávit tajemníka strany, za použití cyankáli. Nás jako studenty vyslýchali. 'My víme, že jsi ten cyankál ukradl z kabinetu. My to víme!' Takže potom je zavřeli, tyhle lidi. Šlezingera zavřeli s naším třídním učitelem, profesorem Kučerou."

  • "Moje matka jezdila [do Švýcarska] desetkrát dvanáctkrát a pokaždé jsem musel za ni všechno vyplňovat. Tak pochopitelně, byl jsem jim nejblíž po ruce. Nejhorší bylo, že jsem vlastně zachraňoval lidi, protože když se mě na někoho ptali, nemlčel jsem, já ho obhajoval. Čili brzy přišli na jiné téma. Takže v tomhle nemám výčitky a všichni mí kamarádi o tom ví. Mám naprosto čisté svědomí, nikdy jsem nic nepodepsal. Byl jsem jen evidován, že jsem k nim chodil a mohli se mě vyptávat, ale nikdy v životě jsem jim nic nepodepsal."

  • "Když jsem přišel na StB, byly tam dvoje mříže. Můžu jmenovat i toho, co mě vyslýchal. Bylo vidět, jak to všechno zapíná, tak se mě ptal na lidi, říkal mi: 'Vy jste ze Stavoprojektu, tam je nějaký inženýr Sedlák, který chodí do kostela, je to pravda?' Říkal jsem, že ano, že je to ale bezvadný kamarád, spolužák, že do kostela chodí, ale není na tom nic špatného. Pak se mě zeptal zase na někoho. Říkal mi, že slyšel, že ten člověk udělal to a to. A já říkal, že je to nesmysl. Vždycky, když jsem přišel z výslechu, ihned jsem běžel k těm lidem a řekl jim, na co se mě ptali: 'Hele, ptali se mě na tebe, že jsi dělal nějaký protistátní plakát.' Takhle jsem se s lidmi vždycky domlouval."

  • “Life was really rough with the Technical auxiliary battalions. The wake-up call was at 4 a.m., the working time was around ten, twelve hours a day. Once a week we worked in these nuclear…, that meant in masks on scaffolding and so on. And who didn't meet the norm… The civilian norm was 150 %. Not 100, but 150 %. Whoever didn't meet the norm had to go finish it after hours and report when he was done. And it was really rough. And of course, we were doing the hardest jobs – earthwork, masonry work, concrete work.”

  • “I remember organizing the student homecoming and that I was kind of the head of the procession. I remember that it was even being broadcasted on TV. Anti-state slogans were chanted there. I've never known who did or didn't denounce me but allegedly they filmed it with a camera from a ledge and from the windows. So I can't really say that someone denounced me… Later they took advantage of the fact that I was turning in some projects at school and they held on to it. They couldn't say it was a political motive. So instead they said that I had handed in a project an hour later or something like that.”

  • “In Sezemice it was a big textile factory that was, however, suddenly being remade as the war had started. The Germans came, they seized the textile machines and started remaking it into toy manufacturing. It was a covert production of weapons, of course. And I remember that the Germans made quite a mess there. They occupied houses and so on. My father had been the director of the factory. He had even had a Hetzen car with a driver at his disposal. We had had a swimming pool in our garden, a beautiful life really, but it turned out badly because my father didn't want anything to do with the Germans.”

  • Full recordings
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    Jihlava, 21.11.2019

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    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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    Jihlava, 06.04.2022

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We organized student homecoming and anti-state slogans were chanted

Zdeněk Baueršíma
Zdeněk Baueršíma
photo: archiv pamětníka

Zdeněk Baueršíma was born March 21, 1934 in Jihlava. As a child he often moved with his family, depending on where and in which textile factory his father worked at the moment. In 1938 they had to move out of Sudetenland and they spent most of the war in Světlá nad Sázavou. Zdeněk graduated from a gymnasium and was accepted at the Faculty of Architecture, field of study ‘building construction’, after a one-year professional experience in the Military Design Institute. However, in the fifth year of his studies he was expelled because he had participated in the student homecoming. He spent part of his military service with the Technical auxiliary battalions and also building an airport and apartment buildings in Krnov. He then worked in Stavoprojekt and has had over two hundred and fifty completed projects in his portfolio. His brother Ivo emigrated to Switzerland following August 1968.