Image
This is a photograph of the elementary school in post-war Radvanice.
After the war I didn't make it back to Radvanice until 1947 or 1948, while I was still studying at ICT, when I used to travel to Ostrava to the mining university for consultation regarding mining chemistry. At that time I also for the first time went to Petrvald to look at Jakub's house and the places where I had to a large degree spent my childhood. When I went there a second time, however, Jakub's house was no longer standing. For they mined coal there, and the house was already so undermined that it had collapsed. That was a terrible disappointment for me. From Petrvald I took the narrow-gauge streetcar to Radvanice. Because I didn't have anyone there any more, I had to stay with strangers. It was a horrible feeling, when I said to myself that here I had spent part of my life and now I don't even have a place to sleep. I continued by train to Orlova, where I found that our Czech high school building wasn't there any more. It had also collapsed thanks to the mineshafts.
