When my friends left for Czechia, it was as if a chunk had been ripped from my heart
Josef Mašek was born on 9 April 1955 in the Czech village of Gerník (Gârnic in Romanian), Caraș-Severin County, Romania. His father was blinded in an accident at 19 and so it was the witness’ mother Barbora and his grandparents who had to work the family farm. At 13, after his grandfather’s death, most of the work on the farm fell to him. From his school years onwards, he enjoyed singing and conducted a child choir. At 24 he bought his first accordion and in 1981 he was present at the founding of music group Bohemia, which he sang and played in for the next 25 years. The musicians regularly performed throughout all the Czech villages in Banat and played at countless dances, festivals, Slavic carnivals and other social events. After the fall of the Communist regime, most of its members left the band, leaving for work in Bohemia. Some of previous members or their descendants continue to play in Bohemia to this day, with a repertoire of traditional songs they used to play in Gerník. Josef Mašek worked at several jobs in the nearby mines into his 50s, before retiring. For fifteen years he worked in the praesidium of the Democratic Union of Slovaks and Czechs of Romania. At the time of recording he lived in Gerník (October 2021).
