“I recall one bizarre situation which showed me the extent of the perversity of the regime and its power which I did not presuppose at all. I supposed I was being watched and that someone from my surroundings grassed on me that I was distributing illegal printed materials. But this situation surprised me. It was connected with some Palach anniversary. It was supposed that such people will gather somewhere. And on that day the assessment officer called for me and two men dressed in trench coats were waiting for me in the office and they told me that I am not allowed to leave the building of the theatre for the whole day. And those two members of State Security – and this amazed me – indeed stood each in one empty corner of the stage which we prepared for a performance and for the whole time I was involved in that process, they stood there and kept an eye on me. Although I considered myself a completely ordinary, insignificant rebel. And I asked myself: ‘OK, when two men are assigned to watch me, what does it look like by those who are much more important in the opposition movement?’ So, on one hand I felt that even those seemingly meaningless things as the copying the materials using a typewriter do have a meaning when it causes such attention. And on the other hand, it really amazed me how many agents exist when two were assigned to me on that day.”
"The situation had developed in such way that I was called by the director of school department and he told me: ‘Well, you are now in the charge of the marriage counselling and you work with the youth, so it is necessary for you to publicly denounce Charter 77 in the local newspapers.’ Well, and I refused, I said that I do not consider it appropriate to refuse such material and that it is primarily necessary to publish it. And then, the people can decide whether they will or will not agree with it. But I cannot request the condemnation in advance without granting the public the possibility to familiarize themselves with such material. I really tried to argue why it is necessary to made such material public and why it is for me absolutely out of the question to denounce it. I expected it will cause such a kind of a reaction the but I was nevertheless surprised that I was fired on the same day."
“At that time, I attracted attention of the police because at the occasion I bought so called petrol designated for lighters at a tobacconist. These were such small ampoules from which petrol could be squirted out if the ampoule was pierced with a pin. And during the ceremonial procession I stood among my classmates and squirted petrol on those lanterns and many of them ignited. I was caught by a policeman dressed in a uniform, brought to the school and the headmaster, who was a very strict lady, told the policeman: ‘But that is impossible, he is our best student! And he is the chairperson of his class!’ And I have the feeling that because of the lack of evidence, probably, I was pardoned by the headmaster back then. Or I was slapped, I am not so sure nowadays.”
Josef Josefík was born on 2 September 1949 in Ostrava-Zábřeh. He grew up in Přerov where his father worked as a secondary school teacher of Czech and German language and history. In the beginning of 1950s, his grandparents lost their farm. The witness studied at a secondary school of agriculture and in 1968 he entered the College of Agriculture in Jihlava (today the College of Polytechnics Jihlava, VŠPJ). The next year he transferred to study psychology in Brno and he successfully finished his studies in 1794. After his studies he worked in a psychological counselling in Ždár nad Sázavou but he lost his job in 1977. It happened after he suggested the document Charter 77 should be made public. He was forbidden to run a psychological practice and it was hard for him to get any kind of a job. Eventually he became a stage technician in the Divadlo Oldřicha Stibora theatre (today Moravské divadlo) in Olomouc. During his stay in Olomouc, he took part in copying and distributing of samizdat publications and because of that State Security’s attention turned to him. He had worked as a stage technician (actually the job was called workman-builder) for the following 13 years, until the Velvet Revolution, after which he became the director of the theatre. He has never returned to his previous job in psychology. During the recording of the interview (2021) he lived in Prague.
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!
