Róbert Schmidt

* 1968

Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
První vídeňská arbitráž - maďarský zábor Podkarpatské Rusi a jižního Slovenska, Vznik Slovenského státu, Vypuknutí 2. světové války, Slovenské národní povstání, Odsun Němců z ČSR, Komunistický převrat v ČSR, Perestrojka, Sametová revoluce v Československu, Rozdělení Československa
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    The students are on strike

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    ´On Monday evening, I was doing my assignments when students began to gather in the dormitory lobby, debating something. It was already evening, around half past ten, and I realized that there was already a large mass of people talking passionately about something, so I finished with the tasks and joined. Then a discussion started there about how students were beaten up in Prague. There was one girl among us who was in Prague at that time to visit her family and told us about what happened there. We were shocked by that - until then, it was unprecedented for the police to act so harshly against demonstrators, maybe in '68. The whole discussion then turned to the fact that protesting students were beaten in Prague. We have to somehow support them and insist that it be investigated. Different speakers stood before the crowd and it was decided what our demands would be. Then the demands were written, while the emphasis was often placed on a proper investigation of the intervention. There was also a suggestion from one older student that we would demand that the Soviet troops leave Czechoslovakia. Then there was silence, because it seemed too bold to us. Finally, a provisional strike committee was organized there and we agreed to gather in front of the school the next day. Now there was a long discussion about how to get there - we can't form a crowd, because the state security will take us straight away. So we agreed that each of us would come to a different time and spontaneously gather in front of the school. We then established contact with another college. The scoundrels also came to see us, we knew it was them because they were wearing such green-gray coats, they watched us for a while and left. After that, we started to write the demands on the typewriter and all that remained was to inform the rector. The person at that time was Professor František Zábranský, who coincidentally became rector shortly before, after the previous rector resigned. So we went to the hall, where there was a telephone machine. We found his number in the phone book and called him. We informed him that we would not come to the school, because we were preparing for a meeting that would take place in front of the Technical University. And he told us that 'okay, I'll come there too'.´

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    Banned recordings of Karel Kryl

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    ´I had a friend who was an organized tramp. His name was Rasťo Havalda, he is no longer alive. Rasťo had a tramp nickname "Frankie" and I think in the second year of grammar school he wrote to Radio Free Europe - RFE, asking them to play him a song - Karel Kryl was leading a music show there at that time. He signed only with that tramp nickname. They came upon him very quickly, they had snoopers among them. After that, members of state security came to his house and found a lot of tapes with recordings, which they deleted. By the way, his father was a professor. In the end, he was not kicked out of the grammar school, supposedly for health reasons, but he had a lot of problems because of it. Then I had a classmate in college who also had a similar experience. This is how they caught the entire network of people who had banned Karel Kryl's recordings. It was not allowed to spread it among the younger generation, you could only get to it through Radio Free Europe or from old LP records. At that time there was such a thing as forbidden music, which is unimaginable today, so Rasťo was such a rioter in this.´

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    Illegal landfills in Prievidza

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    ´Several of us got the idea then, and I was probably the initiator of it, that we would do mapping, documentation and categorization of landfills. We didn't want to interfere with industrial landfills, it was about the waste that people throw away - every village had a dump practically anywhere. We prepared it as an organization of SZOPK and with its wider base, with the fact that we have the people to do it and we will look for ways to dispose of the landfills. But we also need the support of the authorities to prevent this from happening again. I developed the entire questionnaire, we managed to get maps, which was not easy at that time, because maps were not readily available to people, especially detailed ones - we had a scale of 1:50,000. A lady from the SZOPK district committee also helped us with this, who wished us very well in this matter. She arranged for us to reproduce the questionnaires, which was not commonly available at that time. I had a whole bunch of it after that. We copied the maps, prepared sets for grassroots organizations with instructions on how to map it, and then they summoned our district secretary to the party committee. When my friend and I visited him the next day, he was cleaning the office in only his shorts and told us that he did not want us to hear what he heard at the committee, and that we should get rid of it as soon as possible. We didn't understand why at that time, but we couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't so much about what we wanted to do, but the main problem was that we wanted to organize something without them.´

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    The life of a German in post-war Cheb

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    ´At first the grandfather did not want to wear the armband because he did not consider himself German. They forced him. As he was not an anti-fascist, he did not wear an anti-fascist armband – back then it was white and yellow armbands. Otherwise, they also had to sew these armbands at home. After some time, they did not give him food rations under the ticket system. At that time, they were supplied by their grandmother's brother, General Emil Perko, who sent them packages. At that time, he tried very hard to help them even on the official side. After all, after the war it was someone in Slovakia. Grandfather also had to go to forced labor, but he somehow survived. It wasn't so bad for him because he was taught to work physically even though he was intelligent. However, they had the worst memory of the Red Guards. That's what my grandmother told me, how at that time youth with armbands walked around German apartments with a basket and collected gold and jewelry, because the Germans had to hand over all their valuables. The approach to the Germans changed when the Americans left and were replaced by Czechoslovak soldiers. The Germans could no longer get anything, they were just bullied and persecuted. Grandfather, for example, mentioned how American soldiers used to take white tapes off the shoulders of German girls in the evening and go dancing with them. At that time it was forbidden to fraternize with Germans. It was mainly a German town, but Czechs also lived there, so no one could blame them. No one could prove it to them either, because they were the masters there. But then the situation changed.'

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    Košice, 24.03.2023

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    délka: 04:44:06
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I remember how we called from the hall to the rector of the university that we would not start school.

Róbert Schmidt was born on May 15, 1968 in Bojnice. His mother Valéria, née Pinterová, was born in 1938 in the village of Kolta, located in southern Slovakia. As a result of the First Vienna Arbitration, she spent her early childhood in the occupied territory. She had Hungarian citizenship for seven years. Father Karol Schmidt was born in 1932 in Bardejov to a Slovak-German family. After the end of the Second World War, the father‘s family was a victim of the persecution of members of the German minority in Czechoslovakia. Róbert spent his childhood and adolescence in Prievidza, where his family moved for work.From early childhood, he had a positive relationship with nature, which led him to the Slovak Union for Nature and Landscape Protection in Prievidza (SZOPK) in high school. While working in the SZOPK, he and his colleagues prepared an action plan to combat illegal dumping in the cottage area near Prievidza. Finally, it was not implemented for political reasons. After graduating from Secondary school of Vavrinec Benedikt Nedožerský in Prievidza, he joined the Technical University of Košice (VŠT) in 1986. After the outbreak of the Velvet Revolution, he became a member of the student strike committee, where he actively participated in the fight for freedom and democracy. In December 1989, as a member of the strike committee, he had the opportunity to be part of the strike of the prisoners of the Košice-Šaca correctional facility. In 1992, he started his doctoral studies at VŠT. However, due to financial reasons, he left his studies and worked at the university only as an assistant professor. In 2002-2003, he completed a scholarship stay at the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow. He has been working in Krakow since 2003, where he completed a course to become a tourist guide. He had the opportunity to collaborate on the preparation of the route for the Vrba–Wetzler Memorial and the memorial expedition Following the Traces of hidden children, which is organized by Post Bellum SK. He currently works as a professional tourist guide in Krakow.

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    zdroj: Post Bellum
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  • Photo taken on the occasion of recording the interview.
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    zdroj: Post Bellum
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