Jaroslav Dopita

* 1948

  • "Initially, I was also afraid [to take part in protests during the Velvet Revolution in 1989]. I said I wouldn't go because there would definitely be arrests. We, the Dopitas, are scared of arrests. It's under our skin. Once you get arrested, even briefly, it stays ingrained in your subconscious. Once it was obvious it was really going to crash, I went out too. A 'hero', a 'Czech hero', right? I'm not gonna pretend, what for? I needed to be sure it would turn out well, and not that a green police truck would come and pick me up and I'd end up with a five-year sentence for nothing. I'd hang myself... Why be a hero? It doesn't help you, it's just trouble. I hate communists, I'm just cautious."

  • "The communist party and the government called my father up because the Dopitas had had great success with wood, like nobody else. They told him they wished he could be their sawmill manager in Šumava, and to think about it. Dad told them he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do anything for them since they had stolen it from somebody else: 'I will not run the business following somebody who was treated like I was!', though maybe he didn't say it literally like that. His refusal was the end of our family. They cut us right away. Dad went straight to the shovel. He drilled wells with the photographer Pavelka. They happened to be friends. They had to do everything by hand, there was no machinery, so they worked quite hard."

  • "There seemed to be a glut of timber companies here. But since my grandfather and parents did their business honestly, they were successful. A lot of carpenters came to them back then because they sold quality stuff. The stuff was imported from Slovakia from the Low Tatras where my grandfather, the old gentleman, had forestry friends. They would cut him great deals for a bottle of rum so to speak. I can say it now without getting arrested for it. My grandpa was a big gambler, not that he stripped them bare, but he loved to play cards with them. He had an Indian motorbike with a sidecar and used to source the wood directly from the foresters in the Tatras. My dad, a great sportsman, a flat track racer, we'll get to that, bought the first Tatra 111 with a German Tiger tank engine after the war. They came with these tank engines initially. He had a 20-meter timber trailer and drove home the deals my grandpa had arranged."

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    Hradec Králové, 05.02.2024

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My father served time for sedition The whole family was scared until the Velvet Revolution

Jaroslav Dopita in 1969
Jaroslav Dopita in 1969
zdroj: Jaroslav Dopita's archive

Jaroslav Dopita was born into a very wealthy and hard-working family of Věra and Jaroslav Dopitas on 18 April 1948 as the first-born son. One of the most prosperous companies in Pardubice was founded by his grandfather Josef Dopita in the 1930s. The Dopita a spol. woodworking firm grew rapidly with modern equipment and an honest approach. The grandfather and his two sons managed to maintain the company during the war. Its development was violently interrupted by the nationalization of the entire family‘s property in 1948. The witness‘s father refused to become the manager of a sawmill in Šumava. From then on he was only allowed to work manually. In 1962, the witness‘s father and uncle were sentenced to 17 months in prison for sedition. The father was taken to Jáchymov, the uncle to Žatec. The father lost 15 kilos in prison. The witness faced problems at school because of his bourgeois background, his religious beliefs and his father in prison. He was the only one in his class who did not join the Pioneer movement. He graduated from a mechanical engineering high school in 1966 and immediately joined Tesla in Pardubice. He played hockey, football and cycling on a competitive level. In 1970 he married Dagmar Kalvodová, the daughter of architect Kalvoda. He avoided politics, feigning illness during plant loyalty tests. He feared political repressions throughout the normalisation period all the way to 1989. Ironically, his father was allowed to travel to the USA from 1980 on. The Velvet Revolution was greeted with enthusiasm in the family. They got back some of their property as part of restitution. At the time of filming in 2024, he lived in Pardubice with his wife Dagmar.