Imrich Bílý

Imrich Bílý was born in the vil­lage of Železník, in a set­tle­ment about a kilo­me­tre from the vil­lage. There were 26 hous­es made of wood and unfired bricks in the vil­lage, each with just one room. His par­ents– his moth­er Zuzana Šamková (born 1918) and father Mik­luš Šamko (born 1914) – also came from Železník. The fam­i­ly lived in great pover­ty. Imrich’s father worked as a vil­lage shep­herd, and was paid in kind; lat­er he helped the peas­ants. Imrich’s moth­er went out beg­ging. Just two broth­ers, black­smiths, had fared a lit­tle bet­ter in the set­tle­ment. Karol[1] was what was called the vaj­da and his broth­er Ďuri[2] was an excel­lent story-teller.

[1] Sur­name not provided.

[2] Sur­name not provided.

The Roma from the set­tle­ment began to be bul­lied by the Hlin­ka Guard, in which even local peas­ants from the vil­lage, such as Juraj Foltýn and his broth­er, had enrolled. As well as beat­ings and hav­ing water or slur­ry poured over them, Bílý remem­bered a humil­i­at­ing delous­ing oper­a­tion when the Guards came with a mobile dis­in­fec­tion unit known as a ​“steam­er” and they were all shaved to the skin.

There were par­ti­sans hid­ing in the forests around the set­tle­ment, among them his uncle Bal­a­mu­tas on his mother’s side. The Roma sup­port­ed them, a fact that did not escape the atten­tion of the Ger­man sol­diers who used to come hunt­ing for them in the set­tle­ment. Bílý described see­ing with his own eyes how one Roma from Prosačov who had helped the par­ti­sans was exe­cut­ed as a les­son to others.

The Ger­mans took Imrich Bílý’s father with oth­er Roma to dig trench­es at Duk­la for the Ger­man defence. He tried to escape more than once, but was suc­cess­ful only at the third attempt. He first shel­tered with his fam­i­ly in the parish of Vagaš[1] but after a con­flict with Ger­man sol­diers they began to hide in the forests. The women were afraid of being raped.

In the end the fam­i­ly reached the vil­lage of Chmeľov where, at the home of his grandmother’s sis­ter. They wel­comed the arrival of the Russ­ian troops and the end of the war on 18 or 19 Jan­u­ary 1945.

[1] Today Spišská Poruba.

Imrich Bílý had com­plet­ed three years of school­ing in Slo­va­kia and the remain­der in Most where the fam­i­ly moved in 1946. His father found work in the con­struc­tion indus­try and the fam­i­ly began to stand on their own feet. Imrich Bílý describes the sup­port they received from the Czechs.

He met his wife Hele­na in 1954 at Roz­toky near Prague. They soon obtained a flat in the vil­lage of Sedlec and Hele­na gave birth to a son Hon­za and a daugh­ter Ilona. Imrich had to start his mil­i­tary ser­vice in 1956, spend­ing two years and two months with the mil­i­tary gar­ri­son in Prachat­ice and in Hart­man­ice. After his return from mil­i­tary ser­vice he and Hele­na got mar­ried. Bílý described the spon­ta­neous­ly arranged dou­ble wed­ding with his sis­ter and broth­er-in-law Josef Žolták. He and Hele­na raised alto­geth­er six chil­dren. One son, Imrich, died trag­i­cal­ly at the age of twen­ty-five after being injured at work in the ura­ni­um mines.

Imrich Bílý earned his liv­ing as a pro­fes­sion­al dri­ver and, as he said, spent forty-four years behind the wheel. He was employed by ČSAD, as well as by the local author­i­ty, dri­ving a mechan­i­cal street sweep­er [a Mer­cedes PRA­GA-KUKA]. He also drove an IFA goods lor­ry, a tram­bus, a Tatra 148 with a trail­er, etc.

For approx­i­mate­ly twen­ty years they lived in the vil­lage of Dětři­chov in a cot­tage with a small­hold­ing where they could raise ani­mals. Then they moved to Brandýs for ten years to give the chil­dren bet­ter con­di­tions as they grew up. They worked in a fac­to­ry, and when the com­pa­ny was tak­en over by a French firm they fol­lowed Hele­na Bílá’s sis­ter to Prague-Vysočany; after anoth­er six­teen or sev­en­teen years they moved to north Bohemia.

He looked back nos­tal­gi­cal­ly on the Com­mu­nist peri­od, when every­one had the same con­di­tions and access to work, as a time when they were equal before the law and it was safe to walk the streets. What he crit­i­cised above all since the Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion is the unequal access to edu­ca­tion, dis­crim­i­na­tion on the labour mar­ket, and the racial­ly moti­vat­ed mur­ders in the 1990s.