Zdeněk Čepelík

* 1956

  • "There was a robbery of a mail truck. When they robbed and emptied the car. It was a large sum at that time, about six million. Of course they made a raid. And to reinforce those local policemen, they took us to Brno, we were staying in the barracks. And we would go with these policemen, who were already trained, to the crossroads and stop cars and check people and cars and loads and all these things. And this was in the winter, in February, and it was incredibly cold. And I say, Brno is Brno, but it's a big village. There were excellent people there again. An old man and his wife cooked us hot tea with plum brandy. The lady made us pancakes. We stood there for twelve hours, it was no fun. Then nothing was found, it was too late."

  • "We had training in the morning, outside we had to dig and crawl in the mud. We came to the barracks - they whistled for us to put our things away and we had to go to the meal clean, with shiny shoes. We ran in those rags into the showers, showered. You got your shoes wet and you grabbed your cutlery and you were off to lunch. And it was the way that the company went and then the first squad, second squad, third squad, and that's the way it went in a row. And what you got done, you got done. If you didn't make it, you'd pocket the dry bread from a bucket. And that's how they rushed us around every day. At night there were alarms... The worst was Smraďavka, that was the hill at the top, that was the one that was hard for us... They always announced an alarm at night, they labeled it a chemical alarm, so we had to carry out our mattresses, we had to close everything up and we ran up there in masks. It was very cruel there. In the morning, we came back, warm up exercise and it went on. I think we hit rock bottom a lot that time. They wanted to sort us out. To see if we could keep it up morally. I was fit, I played hockey here and football there, I boxed here and there. (...) I didn't mind, I didn't have any problems. Shooting, I always got a day-off, I had excellent shots. I thought it was because I had practiced at home with an air rifle. So going through this wasn't pleasant, but I didn't mind it."

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    Frýdlant, 07.03.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:13:16
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I wanted to be a criminal investigator, but I left the National Security Corps and I was happy I did

Zdeněk Čepelík on a trip in Špindlerův Mlýn
Zdeněk Čepelík on a trip in Špindlerův Mlýn
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Zdeněk Čepelík was born on 9 May 1956 in Frýdlant, his parents came to the border region together with others to settle the farms vacated by the displaced Germans. Zdeněk Čepelík went to primary school in Pertoltice. During the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, he watched the tanks and planes arriving. After primary school he went to study locksmithing. His dream job was to become a criminal investigator, so he joined the National Security Corps (NSC) school. As part of his studies, he served as a member of the NSC in various parts of the country, but even graduating with honours did not bring him the desired result of a career as an investigator. He therefore left the National Security Corps. He began his compulsory military service with six months of training in Frýdek-Místek. He then served his military service in Prague and Kladno with the Military Services. He met his future wife, who came from Huť, on his way to school on the train from Frýdlant to Liberec. After their marriage they had three sons of their own and took four more children into foster care. He worked at the quarry in Krásný Les, where he worked as a quarrymen leader. During his employment he graduated from the evening secondary technical school. After the Velvet Revolution, he became production manager at the stone quarry in Čerčany. He worked at the Krásný Les stone quarry, which was eventually bought by the Dobet company, for two more years while already being retired. In 2023 he was living in Krásný Les.