Petr Böhm

* 1937

  • "When we were coming back from our holiday in Yugoslavia, we took a different crossing, we went through southern Bohemia, and here, as part of the resistance against the occupying troops, all the road signs had been switched, so České Budějovice was marked on the road sign in a completely different direction, and every village, every crossroads was marked differently, so we got a bit lost before we arrived at a familiar road where we already knew it."

  • "It was a bit of a more free year in the apprenticeship, the demands on the theoretical teaching were very low, so I enjoyed it. Well, half of that time, always four hours a day, was spent at the shoe belt, where they actually made shoes, rubber boots, rubber overshoes, and that was quite tiring, because the work was that every minute an unfinished shoe would come to you, one particular job would be done, the shoe would go, another job would come, and another job would come, and so on for all four hours."

  • "I have vague memories of that, because Křižanov, including our house, was threatened by the bombing, so the whole family went to a village about five kilometres away to stay with friends, where it was relatively quiet and we were not in such danger. I remember leaving Křižanov and looking back at the centre of Křižanov as individual bombs exploded and some houses caught fire and burned."

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    Olomouc, 11.07.2025

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From childhood in war to journeys in freedom

With harmonica to the music ensemble
With harmonica to the music ensemble
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Petr Böhm was born on 1 October 1937 in Prague and spent his childhood in Křižanov in the Vysočina region, where his father Jiří owned a chemist´s shop and his mother Aloisie helped her husband with the operation, took care of the household and their two children - Petr and his older brother Jiří. The chemist´s building was damaged by bombing at the end of the war in 1945 and was nationalized after the rise of communism. Because of his family background, Peter was not accepted to the grammar school at first and spent a year as an apprentice in Gottwaldov. Eventually he could transfer to the grammar school and eventually studied chemistry, to which he devoted his entire working life. Thanks to avoiding the work assignement, he joined the preferred Olšany Paper Mills, where he also met his future wife. Together with her, they continue to look after their house in Raškov after more than 50 years, gardening and travelling as much as they can.