The Czechoslovak School Masarykova Bjelovar was founded by the Czech society “Češka obec Bjelovar” and operated for 16 years.

The school was accredited by the Ministry of Education in Belgrade on July 15, 1925 (becoming law under decree number 39502). Classes began on September 1, 1925, and the new school building was officially opened soon after on November 15. It was a private accredited school and was named the Czechoslovak School Masarykova Bjelovar (Československá škola Masarykova Bjelovar).

The school was attended by children from the town of Bjelovar and its residential areas: Brezovac, Gudovac, Ivanovčani, Hrgovljani, Korenovo, Križevačka cesta, Nove Plavnice, Male Sredice, Velike Sredice, Markovac (Trojstveni), Mlinovac, Novoseljani, Prokljuvani and Ždralovi. Several students were from the nearby villages of Obrovnica, Predavac, Rovišće and Severin, and a single student from the village of Sv. Ivan Žabno. The school was attended by 757 students (boys and girls) in total. The classes were held in Czech by teachers mostly coming from Czechoslovakia, and they were organized according to the Czechoslovak curriculum. There were also classes taught in Croatian, such as the Croato-Serbian language and Yugoslav history and geography classes, held by part-time teachers.

The Czechoslovak School Masarykova Bjelovar was closed in June 1941, at the end of school year 1940-1941, by the Ministry of Religion and Education, the Department of Public Schools of the Independent State of Croatia. The Ministry abolished all private Czech elementary schools and kindergartens, as well as Czech departments in Croatian public schools on June 3, 1941.

The school building, which also served as the headquarters of “Češka obec Bjelovar”, was destroyed in the bombing of Bjelovar in 1944. The Czech society “Češka obec Bjelovar” continued to operate after World War II, but the Czechoslovak School Masarykova Bjelovar was never reopened.

Masarykova School was attended by all four children of Alois Dočkal and Marija Dočkal, née Čech, who descended from the first Czech migrants to the area of Ivanovčani near Bjelovar.

The Dočkal family, Franjo (1852-?) and Franciska (1856-1923), née Pospišil, moved from the region of Moravska (the town of Brodek u Přerova) to the area of Ivanočani near Bjelovar with their four children around 1884. Back then, Bjelovar was a military town, so the Austro-Hungarian authorities encouraged farmers to migrate to Ivanovčani and produce food for the army and the citizens of Bjelovar. The Dočkal family was given 29 acres of land by the authorities. The Dočkals were a wealthy family, as is manifest from the fact that they had arrived with four pairs of horses and with agricultural machinery, among which was the first threshing machine in Bjelovar. Before World War II had begun, Franjo Dočkal joined the Czech society “Češka obec Bjelovar”.

Franjo’s youngest son Alois was born in Ivanovčani in 1888. After having finished elementary school, Alois stayed with his parents to help them farm. In 1912 he married Marija Čech (1892-1972), a woman from Plavnice near Bjelovar, with whom he had four children. The family sought to preserve Czech as their mother tongue. Hence, all four children, Stjepan (1913-?), Vjekoslav (1915-1991), Emilija (1916-1991) and Vladimir (1918-1980) attended the Czechoslovak Masarykova School starting from 1925.

In Socialist Yugoslavia, Alois declared himself as Croatian. He and his son Vjekoslav worked as farmers and cultivated 12 acres of land, but opposed joining an agricultural cooperative. In 1949, Alois was arrested for burning the barn of the president of the cooperative. He was sentenced to death by firing squad, permanently stripped of any civil and political rights, and had all his property confiscated. Vjekoslav was charged with undermining socialist development in the countryside together with his father. He was sentenced to forced labor, lost voting rights for a period of two years, and had all his property confiscated.

The fact that Alois’s uncle Kamilo Dočkal was a high-ranking priest of the Zagreb archdiocese contributed to such severe charges and punishments.

It was common for members of immigrant families to marry to other immigrant families. More so than national pride, this was a matter of keeping as much of the acquired land in one piece as possible. Thus, Alois’s daughter Emilija Dočkal, who did not continue her education after finishing the Masarykova School, got married to their near neighbor, Stjepan Uhliř, in 1934.

The Uhliř family (brothers Teodor, Franjo and Rudolf) migrated from Dražice (a village in Tabor District, in what is today the Czech Republic) to Ivanovčani at the end of the 19th century. They brought with them two pairs of horses, various household items, agricultural tools (among which was a metal plow – a novelty back then), as well as sacks of potatoes. They arrived in a covered wagon, which is why the locals said they had “arrived in a coffin”. In addition, the family also had a carriage. According to Miroslav Uhliř, his grandfather Teodor was the driver of the then prefect of the Bjelovar-Križevačka County. The authorities provided the family with 12 acres of land, a plot of land for a house, and financial assistance for building a house.

In 1896, Teodor Uhliř (1868 - circa 1950) married Terezija Šebela (1876–1963), an immigrant from Rača (a borough of Bratislava), which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the dual monarchy. Their two children, Stjepan and Marija, were born in Ivanovčani. Their father, the head of the family, insisted that the children speak Croatian, because when they spoke Czech, the neighbors could not understand them and thus thought the family was gossiping about them. His wife Terezija, however, never quite acquired Croatian, which is why her grandchildren also partially learned Czech. Terezija would speak Czech with her daughter-in-law, Emilija Dočkal, who had attended a Czech school. Terezija was, in a way, the guardian of the Czech language and customs in the Uhliř family, especially traditional dishes such as sweet yeast buns, dumplings and potato soup (buchtičky, knedlíky, bramborová polévka).

Teodor and Terezija’s son Stjepan Uhlir (1899-1974) received education at the Gymnasium in Bjelovar. When he came of age in 1917, he entered active military service. Emilija Dočkal and Stjepan Uhliř got married in 1934 and had two sons: Andrija (1936-1999) and Miroslav (1952). Although the family worked in agriculture, both sons became skilled auto mechanics; Andrija was taught by Knytl, a well-known auto mechanic from Bjelovar.

Stjepan, despite reading books in Czech and listening to the radio (which was a rarity at the time) to keep track of political events, did not wish to stand out. This is why his family never joined the local Czech society “Česka obec Bjelovar”.

However, members of both the Dočkal and Uhliř families are on the list of compatriots (krajani) of “Češka obec Bjelovar” from 1935.

Today, neither of the two families maintains ties with the members who stayed in what is today the Czech Republic or returned to it after World War II.