"Then the trial started. How did you defend yourself?” - “When I defended myself in front of those State Security officers, in the same way, I defended myself here as well. What is Vyčital's song: He didn't see, he didn't hear, I didn't see anyone here." "So, you denied it?" - "So, I denied it, and what were they supposed to do. Only that, witnesses marched parade there. It was obvious that someone was still trying to accommodate me. But otherwise, although friends from that time, they were manipulated. As I went into the unions, I found that I had gotten them in a bit of trouble. Some were before, two three. But then there was a whole range related to this. Because there was also when, as they call it, he was persuaded, verbovka they also called it, simply persuaded for cooperation. So, I found that, unfortunately, it was often related in time that it coincided with my case. So, then they felt that there was nothing else to do. And today they have a reason to be ashamed. Even if it's a little bit, it seems a little bit that they're growing again, as our parents told us, are they growing again?” “Spurs?” - “A crest.”
"What would you say to young people?" - "The message seems a bit pathetic to me, but still, as I said, I would like to say or remind you of this. When I started studying the secondary grammar school and the humanities branch, which was formed at the time, in 1965, because it was known that the ice was melting, and Latin lessons were also introduced. So, one of the first sentences that was on the first or second page that Historia magistra vitae est. And I looked at it: Well, all right. So, history is the mother of wisdom or the teacher of life, so well, it didn't tell me much back then. But as I got on with my life and to today's level of the old man, I realized how much truth there was. And so I would like to say, learn, understand everything, try to understand everything around you, because it is very important, education is above all, but historical education is the most important in terms of the development of your personalities and our state. Understand what happened here and what must never happen again."
"But then the nation immediately, or not immediately, but despite Palach's death, even though it seemed that there would be a protest, the nation retreated again." "Like rams, silence everything. Suddenly, everyone was supposed to take care of themselves. It could then be seen that the persecution was not in the way of beheading and twenty years punishments, but above all in the form of material and career liquidation. And people started to be afraid, editors started to be afraid. They then fired them anyway, those who were brave. After all, Mr. Feldstein I spoke of was… There were the three most successful or revolutionary periodicals, it was the Student, it was Literární listy and Reporter. And he was the editor-in-chief at the age of twenty-four of the Student, then, perhaps he himself was a final year student. And even the most revolutionary editors then began to retire. I have a family, what will I do, who wants to work with a shovel. And now that it's such a general fucking mood. I needed to oppose it. And I thought that everyone was like that, or that it was the way it was in the 1968, and that my words were simply going to fertile ground, and that it was useful. It certainly was, that's why they came after me. But no one would dare to get out and go somewhere to make notes. That's how it turned out then."
Václav Bruna was born on June 3, 1950 in Pardubice. He grew up in Český Brod, where he graduated from general secondary school in 1968. For the next six years he studied dentistry at the Jan Evangelista Purkyně Military Medical and Educational Research Institute in Hradec Králové. In 1973 he received a titul doctor in medicine. The following year he became a dentist of the tank regiment in Martin, Slovakia. In 1976 he married Ludmila Babinska. He criticized on communism, took the exile bimonthly Listy and spread it among colleagues in the workplace. He was monitored by the State Security since 1975. In 1980, he was sentenced to sixteen months unconditionally for sedition. After his release, he worked as a company dentist in Makyta Púchov. In 1988 he emigrated with his wife via Yugoslavia to Austria. He worked there for three years at the dental clinics in Salzburg and Linz. In 1992 he founded a private dental practice in Dolní Dvořiště. In addition to medicine, he bred racing horses, his dark bay Peruán won three times in Velká Pardubická. In 2020, Václav Bruna lived with his wife Ludmila in Freistadt, Upper Austria.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
