"So I got this job as a psychologist in Pas de Calais in the north of France, by the sea. It was a perfect place. I cursed myself afterwards for leaving it. I was spoiled for good opportunities. And to go there every week, it was still some two hours away, but it was by the sea. So my field or area that I worked in there was equitherapy [therapy through contact with horses]. So I arrived. We always went out to the sea once a week on horseback. That was one of the main focuses of my work with the mentally ill population."
"That was pretty rough. We had a cottage by the Orlík dam. It was summer, it was a beautiful summer. And on the twentieth [of August 1968] we were at Orlík, we went to dance. We went to bed rather late. That is, at about three o'clock in the morning, when was already the occupation in progress, but we didn't know it. So in the morning at seven o'clock we were awakened by our neighbour saying that there was a war. So it was kind of... That was a strong impression, that was a shock."
"I graduated in 1966. I have good memories of it. It was kind of a circle of friends, we were like cursed poets in a way. I know that my colleague and I went to Maruška Kudeříková's Strážnice. That's in Moravia, right. Because we took part in some competition for young poets and we even won, so we went to get a medal. Of course, the first night of our arrival, before the medal was awarded - that was the day before - we visited a few wine cellars and then - the next day, when we were supposed to get the medal, we could hardly keep on our feet."
Jiří Eduard Hermach was born on 28 April 1948 in Tábor into the family of philosopher and university teacher Jiří Hermach. His father was a long-time member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). In the 1960s, however, he took a critical opinion and joined the reform movement. With the oncoming normalisation, he was politically persecuted. His children did not escape prblems either (his daughter Jana, after graduating from the Academy of Perfoming Arts, was fired from the Prague City Theatres, did not get a permanent engagement and appeared only rarely in front of film and television cameras). Jiří studied philosophy and psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. After graduating, he changed several jobs (night watchman, driver) until he obtained a job as a psychologist in a psychiatric hospital in Kosmonosy. In 1975 he emigrated to France. From 1977 he worked as a clinical psychologist in Paris and Pas de Calais. He collaborated with the exile magazine Svědectví (Testimony). He studied philosophy again at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he defended his doctoral thesis in 1979. From 1986 to 1992 he studied architecture at the École d‘Architecture de Paris La Villette (EAPLV). After 1989 in the Czech Republic he collaborated with the magazine Přítomnost (Present Time). He is the author of several books (e.g. Philosophy of Architecture, World Travelers on Air Day). He translated E. E. Schmitt‘s play Frederick, which was performed in 2004 at the ABC Theatre with Boris Rösner in the title role. He is an active painter. In 2023 he was living permanently in France, but still regularly visited the Czech Republic.
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