Tag #139744 - Interview #78049 (Pavel Fried)

After the end of my basic service I got a job at the Research Institute for Construction Machinery in Brno. Along with my work I of course also had to display a certain amount of politically cultural activity. I was editor of a so-called bulletin board magazine, in which we criticized conditions in our workshop. Our criticism offended the Communists that worked there. They became upset and problems began. Shortly after this incident came political screening. Because I was the son of a Jew and capitalist, they wanted to push me out of the institute. Our party cadre official took my side and said that my dismissal would be looked upon as vengeance for my criticism of workshop conditions and as a display of anti-Semitism. It was the first time under the Communist regime that being a Jew worked to my advantage. Besides my work I also studied at university, from which I graduated at the age of 38.