"These were banned exchanges in Ostrava. They were always in a different place, no more than twice in one place. Strange that we always found out somewhere where it is. There was no facebook, there was nothing, and somehow it spread among the people who went there. It was always Sunday morning. In each period, it started when it was completely dark, basically at night. In the summer, it started at four in the morning, and maybe at six it was over. Those of us who liked this kind of music went there. You bought one LP record, normally a classic one, or as a party we bought one record, because it was terribly expensive, it cost about 500 Czechoslovak crowns, which was half of your paycheck. It's as if you now paid 300 or 400 euros for one. We bought rock or metal things at the exchange, you bought one, beautiful, and we all recorded it on tapes in the party. We had a record player and we recorded it at someone’s place. We had to make it in a week to go back to the exchange with the record on Sunday and replace it. Like we gave Kiss and we took AC/DC for it. All sorts of things, gradually. We recorded them on tapes, on cassettes, and that's what we lived for. But it was forbidden. In the meantime, they were also selling some video recorders at the exchange ... Once in a while, the police raided it, that it was forbidden. I was lucky that I was never involved, not once, but my brother was and also some of my friends were. When they raided, people scattered, everyone ran away in all directions. Those who they caught had everything they had with them taken, the records, or anything. Suddenly you had nothing. Then they also arrested some and then they probably investigated them there in some way, but we were definitely small fish ... I'm not speaking for myself, because I only know that it was so, because I was lucky that it didn't happen to me. I wasn't at every exchange, we took turns with the boys so many times that somebody would go again and so ... "
"Basically, us children were being brainwashed since we were little. Spark, pioneer and things like that ... they knew how to talk about it. I once realized that when I was about ten years old, confused by what we were being told in school, I said to myself, "Thank God we have Comrade Husak as our president, that's why there is world peac." And I realized a few years ago that this was what I really thought. That I said to myself, 'Yeah, it's good that we have him, thanks to him there§s world peace.' You know, but independently of my parents. That was a different, school way. Basically, those communists had everything well thought out, how to manipulate people. They were still in control, and they were still instilling in people from the beginning what they needed, so it was brainwashing. I also know that at that certain age I really thought that [about Husák and world peace]. ”
"My grandfather, the old man, František, was a communist and in the People's Militia. That he would defend socialism with a rifle when needed. There was a turning point. In the 53rd year there was a monetary reform. This meant that, for people who had money in the banks, it was such a disadvantageous exchange rate that they lost a lot of money, some became completely broke. My grandfather just before the reform, because it was rumored that there would be one, went to the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Třinec and asked those comrades if it was true. Because he wants to know if they can do it, rob people like that. They assured him that no, that it was not possible, that there was no reform, that it was just a fable. And suddenly, overnight, they mobilized them, the people's militias, because they used them as their own army. And overnight there was a reform. So my old man still protected Česká spořitelna or Československá spořitelna in Třinec. He stood in front of the building because people were protesting, and he found that the reform was real, that they had deceived him. So the next day, when he withdrew, he took the rifle he was issued, the People's Militia ID, the Communist ID, he went to the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Třinec and there he allegedly banged on the table and said the Polish dialect that is spoken there: „Z takymi ciguńmi nie chci mieć nic społecznego.“ So with such gypsies, he doesn't want anything to do. So he threw his things down, the gun and everything, he leftand he didn't want to hear about them anymore. So since then, I suppose, because neither my dad nor his siblings were communists .... Maybe it originated from here, when he was deceived in ‘53, maybe it carried further in the Třinec branch of our family. "
Jaroslav Janota was born on April 23, 1972 in Třinec to the Czech-Slovak marriage of Vladislav Janota and Ľudmila Janotová. His family instilled in him a rejection of communist ideology. His mother was a deeply religious Catholic, his father inherited resistance to comrades from his father, František Janota. After the hardships of World War II, he became enthusiastic about the idea of communism, joined the party, joined the People‘s Militia, but after the monetary reform in 1953, he no longer wanted anything to do with them. Due to the influence of school and active membership in a pioneer organization, Jaroslav was fascinated by socialist ideals for a while, but it did not last long. In high school, he became interested in forbidden music, movies, and fashion. With his friends, he participated in secret exchanges in Ostrava, organized trips to Budapest for „western goods“. Like his father, he found the love of his life in Slovakia and in 1994 he entered into a Czech-Slovak marriage, this time across two independent states. They settled in Třinec, but after almost ten years they moved to Slovakia. He still disagrees with the division of Czechoslovakia and feels like a Czechoslovak.
Jaroslav Janota in 2020. The witness posing with a t-shirt he wore in his youth. Back then it was not an allowed fashion. He bought clothes like these at the secret exchanges or in Budapest.
Jaroslav Janota in 2020. The witness posing with a t-shirt he wore in his youth. Back then it was not an allowed fashion. He bought clothes like these at the secret exchanges or in Budapest.
Jaroslav Janota in 2020. The witness posing with a t-shirt he wore in his youth. Back then it was not an allowed fashion. He bought clothes like these at the secret exchanges or in Budapest.
Jaroslav Janota in 2020. The witness posing with a t-shirt he wore in his youth. Back then it was not an allowed fashion. He bought clothes like these at the secret exchanges or in Budapest.
The witness' grandmother, wife of František Janota, in 2007 with great-granddaughter. She helped to save Jaroslav's long rocker hair in high school, by faking PN (disability exemption)
The witness' grandmother, wife of František Janota, in 2007 with great-granddaughter. She helped to save Jaroslav's long rocker hair in high school, by faking PN (disability exemption)
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