"Thanks to my work in the bookshop, I had the opportunity to meet other like-minded people. For example, Mr. Kryl from Šternberk, who had contacts with Brno dissidents, or through his deputy, the well-educated bookseller Stanislav Pitner, a legendary person from Prostějov. He was also harshly persecuted for his religious beliefs, and connected me with canons of the Catholic Church in Olomouc, whom I helped to send books by regular mail to Austria. These were joys that most people never dreamed of, and it was a great encouragement for me to get in touch with, for example, the poet Jaroslav Seifert, who was then in disgrace; I have many books signed and dedicated by him. I used to visit him in Prague, in his house in Břevnov, even though I knew that this house was under surveillance by State Security."
"I was one of those who didn't mince words in the army, I criticized the occupation of Czechoslovakia, refused to call it fraternal aid, and it was to be expected that I would be punished for it. I was punished like many others, I was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, where I had been for a relatively short time. As a result of the dismissal from the army, I was released into civilian life. This was in 1969, when the screening committees were being set up and everything possible and impossible was being checked, what attitudes a person had, what they said where, what they did. I made no secret of my opinion that the invasion of the republic was an occupation and not fraternal aid. So in the spring of 1970 I was told that my employment would end with the end of my pupils´ school year."
"My parents tried to spare me some bad memories, so I remember what they told me later. That was that on the first floor of our house in Bělidla there was a big hole in the ceiling caused by artillery shelling from Svatý Kopeček towards Olomouc. I also remember the remains of military vehicles, one cannon, which was not far from the Bystřička River, and which we were very fond of climbing through as boys, even though adults forbade us to do so. So there are very few memories of the World War II, more like fragments. Among other things, my parents told me that when the Russians had attacked Olomouc, the Germans were running to hide in their houses, carrying with them who knows what possessions. And the German, who was so-called „ours“, was carrying a sack of coffee beans, which was a great delicacy at the time and there was a shortage of this commodity. As he was entering the house, he was hit by a bullet, he staggered into the corridor, fell on the sack and bled to death. My mother said afterwards that as soon as the word had got out, people would come running from all over the neighborhood and take the bloodstained coffee away in little bowls."
Luděk Bartoš was born on 30 November 1944 in Olomouc as the older of two children to parents Anna Bartošová (née Kolářová) and father Ludvík Bartoš. In 1962, he graduated from the General Education School in Olomouc and subsequently studied at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University, from which he graduated in 1967. In 1966 he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He spent his military service in the Slovak town of Prešov, where he taught Czech and Russian at the Secondary General Education School of Aviation. In the spring of 1968 he decided to join the army and continue teaching in Slovakia. He publicly disagreed with the entry of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, which later cost him membership in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He was also expelled from the army with a permanent ban on teaching. In 1970, he joined the national enterprise Kniha in Olomouc as an inventory clerk, later became the manager of the Olomouc shop, and then worked in the company management. In November 1989 he co-founded the Civic Forum in Olomouc. In 1990-1991 he was the vice-chairman of the Trade Union of Publishing and Book Trade of Bohemia and Moravia. In 1991, he began teaching at the Slavic Grammar School in Olomouc, where he worked until his retirement. He and his wife Helena have three daughters, and he was living in Olomouc at the time of recording in 2022. Luděk Bartoš passed away on March, the 28th, 2023.
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