I listened to Free Europe on the construction site
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Vladimír Menšík was born on 9 December 1927 in Kostelec na Hané, a small town in the central part of the Olomouc Region. His father Alfons, who maintained friendly relations with the poet Petr Bezruč, and his grandfather Šimon were both farmers. They had a family farm. During the World War II, he witnessed the silent and unnoticed disappearance of Jewish schoolmates from Prostějov. After the war, the family lost their farm due to collectivization. He entered the seminary with the aim of becoming a priest. However, the theological faculty was closed down in the summer of 1950. The witness was therefore forced to join the Auxiliary Engineering Corps, a unit of the army that specialized in the re-education of politically inconvenient persons. He was not released until more than three years later. Subsequently, he worked in the construction industry - first manually, then as a construction manager of the largest constructions in Olomouc and its surroundings. In this position, he was offered to cooperate with State Security, which he refused. He worked in the construction industry until his retirement. In 2022, when recording for Memory of Nations was underway, he was living in a home for the elderly in his native Kostelec na Hané.
