Salt stung the open wounds so much that it brought tears to our eyes
Stáhnout obrázek
Jiří Junek was born on 21 December 1933 in Prague into the farming family of Václav Junek from Kozovazy and Emilie Junkova, née Škvorová, from Mochov. He grew up in Kozovazy on the family farm. He worked hard from childhood. In Kozovazy he lived through the war, the inspections, and witnessed the actions of German and Soviet soldiers. After the war, German civilian prisoners worked there. The forced collectivisation of agriculture affected the family‘s fate. In 1952, as the father refused to join a cooperative farm, he was labelled a kulak and arrested. The farm was handed over to the municipality, which established the cooperative farm, and the family was evicted. Jiří Junek worked in the Metalworks in Čelákovice, where the family moved to a former cement workshop. In 1953 he joined the military service of the Auxiliary Engineerring Corps (PTP) - he worked in the mines in Ostrava, especially at the Pokrok mine in Radvanice. He returned to civilian life in 1955. In his search for employment in the 1950s, he was repeatedly limited by unfavourable cadre assessments. Eventually, he found a position in a construction company as a driver and later as a transport dispatcher. He remained there for 36 years, retiring in 1993. After 1989 he was involved in the transformation of the former cooperative farm into a joint stock company and served as its chairman for three years. He was married twice, has two children and is a widower. He lives in Brandýs nad Labem.