Rudolf Bill

* 1939

  • "The richer the communists got, the more reasonable they became. I saw it in Tesla. When they came from Prague to us in Roznov, they had nothing. Gradually they became managers and others, they built houses. When you get rich and someone tells you they're going to take your house, you want to kill them. What would they do if someone took their houses away from them? So that made them more subtle, they understood some things. They were already taking it differently. Gradually they were softening. But there was still a special department at Tesla that evaluated who was associating with whom. Somebody said to me, 'Rudo, listen, how come you have so much time and you can call your love in Zubri every day?' So I found myself being watched every step of the way to see if I was on the phone with anybody."

  • "I learned that later when I left school. I was in a class that could come out of eighth [grade] and not have to go to ninth. My father said there would be no communists after a year. At that time they were listening to Free Europe and there was always hope that it would end. So I went to the ninth grade and we were waiting for something to happen. It didn't happen. The problem was that you could get anywhere from the eight, but suddenly the eight and the nine were coming out. I was interested in going to food school in Pardubice. When I went there with my mother, she said she had a friend there named Jirka. Then she cried. This Jirka said I had the number one hundred and thirty and only seventy would get in. And the blessing that came from Roznov was not in my favour. I was the son of a tradesman. I could have been the best pupil, the problem was set like that. They got in with worse grades, the main one was working-class background. I didn't have a working-class background."

  • "February 1948 was crazy. We were in the courtyard, and Trčka the butcher came in and said, 'Rudo, that Gottwald guy said they'd only take it away from the bigger ones, not from us tradesmen.' Dad was telling him to go to hell, he wasn't going to listen. I know there was even a bad word spoken at that time. Then the butcher came and said, 'You were right, man.' I heard that as a kid. And then we found out we were going to have to get a lodger. And then that we weren't the landlord anymore, that we'd be renting, too."

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    Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, 28.11.2023

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    délka: 01:26:52
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The communists took everything the ancestors built

Rudolf Bill, 2023
Rudolf Bill, 2023
zdroj: The author of the filming

Rudolf Bill was born on 18 October 1939 in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. The Bill family owned a house on the square. After the communists came to power, their property was nationalized. Rudolf Bill Sr., the father of the witness, used to be a respectable merchant, then worked as a garbage collector. Rudolf Bill was not admitted to study because of his class background, he trained as a confectioner. He worked at the Pupp Hotel in Karlovy Vary. In the evening he graduated from high school and joined the Tesla company in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. Later he became the manager of a large grocery store. Throughout his life, he made no secret of his opposition to the communist regime and never joined the Communist Party. In November 1989, he joined the Velvet Revolution, and in the first free elections in Rožnov he received the most votes of all candidates. The residents wanted him to be mayor, but he did not accept the post because his time was taken up with dealing with the restitution of family property. He served as a councillor. He managed to start his business again, repaired his family house on the square and brought back to life the Dadák coffee brand, which belonged to the family of his wife Svatava, who was also persecuted during communism.