Jan Herka

Jan Herka was born on March 5, 1932 in Dolní Bojanovice in the Hodonín region into a farming family. He had six siblings, his father took care of the farm and vineyard. Together with his brother, he also owned a threshing machine, which they lent to villagers for a fee, while his mother was a housewife. During the Protectorate, the family had to pay farm levies, but they did not suffer from poverty. Hodonín was liberated at the end of the war by the Romanian and Soviet armies. Except for minor thefts by the soldiers, the liberation of Dolní Bojanovice was carried out without any major problems. Jan Herka was involved in scouting since childhood and was also strongly influenced by the Catholic religion. After the municipal and burgher school he went to Hodonín to apprentice as an auto mechanic, during his apprenticeship he travelled to Břeclav and Kopřivnice. After February 1948, together with his friends from the Bojanovice scouts, he became involved in activities against the communist authorities. In the early 1950s, however, the State Security conducted a raid against their group and arrested 20 members. They came for Jan Herka to the apprentice workshop in Kopřivnice, from where he was escorted to the detention centre in Uherské Hradiště. The interrogations took place without the use of physical violence, and after three months in solitary confinement he was transferred to a shared cell, where he and his cellmates Bedřich Zahradník and Alois Zámečník glued bags, knitted bedding and made hatbands. The trial took place in the spring of 1953 in Uherské Hradiště and Jan Herka was sent to prison for a year. As a result of the amnesty of the new president Antonín Zápotocký, his sentence was soon remitted. Jan Herka returned to his native village, but he was not allowed to practice his apprenticeship because his father did not join the JZD (Unified Agriculture Cooperative), and eventually he joined a brickyard. He served his military service in the units of the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP) in various places in Czechoslovakia, for example in the mines near Handlová. After returning from the military service, he had problems finding a job, but managed to find a position as a garage foreman at the Lacrum company in Hodonín, where he worked until his retirement. In 1957, he married and started a family, and outside of his job he worked for many years as a folk storyteller at performances of the Bojané brass band. After 1989, Jan Herka became a member of the Confederation of Political Prisoners of the Czech Republic. He was awarded as a participant of the anti-communist resistance.