František Dusil

* 1934

  • "The situation in Slovakia... I was four years old, so I didn't really understand it. But my dad took it hard. He went there to help as chief inspector of the Financial Guard, securing the border with Hungary, and he was in charge of the entire area from Nové Zámky to Šurany. At first, everything was fine. We were in Piešťany, where we have a beautiful family photo. Then I remember that fighting, shouting, and hate speech began... things were no longer good. Even the housekeeper who worked for us began to act coldly because the current situation required it."

  • "In Třebíč I started high school again. My dad retired early, he disdained the regime because he was a National Socialist. We were treated as a bourgeois family. I didn't realise it at the time, but after a few years I realised that even at grammar school I was one of what I call 'PTP students'. As time went by, I understood that we were actually chosen - the daughter of a butcher, the son of a factory worker and me. We were sent to the Křižanov-Brno Youth Construction site, where we pulled stones with our bare hands, loaded them into carts and pushed them. We had to march in a column like morons, with shovels or pickaxes on our shoulders and sing songs about building a better future. Those who were there out of conviction were just bossing us around."

  • "When I talked to the general's granddaughter, she said my uncle was so somber in the last years of his life. And that he used to go to some hill, that there was where this German soldier buried there, and that he used to sit by the grave and talk to him. Because he ended up just like Ludvík Svoboda - he didn't have any honours, except that when he was buried, they played the national anthem."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Jihlava, 06.07.2025

    (audio)
    délka: 02:12:01
  • 2

    Jihlava, 09.07.2025

    (audio)
    délka: 48:11
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

They came to help Slovakia, they came back in a cattle truck

After being drafted in Prague, September 1954
After being drafted in Prague, September 1954
zdroj: archive of a witness

František Dusil was born on 25 August 1934 in Šurany, Slovakia, into a Czech family as the third son of František and Marie Dusil. His father worked in Slovakia as a chief inspector of the Financial Guard, where he came to help with the staffing of the state administration after the establishment of Czechoslovakia. After 1938 the family had to leave Slovakia due to the prevailing anti-Czech setniment and settled in Podklášteří near Třebíč. During the occupation, his father worked as a secretary at an office. In 1940, the Gestapo searched the Dusil‘s apartment. Three uncles - Václav, Antonín and František Fant - escaped from the Protectorate. Major General František Fanta fought in foreign troops alongside Ludvík Svoboda and Karel Klapálek. After 1948 he refused to join the Communist Party and was forced to retire. František Dusil Jr. studied at the grammar school in Třebíč, except for the years 1946-1949, when the family lived in Mikulov. At the beginning of the fifties he was employed as a student at the Youth Construction on the railway Křižanov - Brno. After graduation he was not admitted to the Faculty of Education in Brno and joined the Kovosvit n. p. in Třebíč. After a work injury, he worked in the state enterprise Restaurants and Canteens. After the war he became a basketball and handball coach and later worked at Gustav Kliment‘s factories as a corporate psychologist-sociologist. After 1968, he had to undergo political screenings. After 1990 he took early retirement. After the division of Czechoslovakia, the authorities granted him Slovak citizenship and he had to apply for Czech citizenship. He continued to work as a coach in Třebíč and received many awards. In 2024, the city inducted him into its Hall of Fame. In 2025 František Dusil lived in Třebíč.