Jan Kozlík

“My father had influenced me most of all by always tuning in Radio Free Europe or a similar station after listening to the regular news on the radio. Then he would tell me how things were in reality, how did the truth differ from what we were told. From the beginning he put me in a position in which – although no one else gave a damn – I would have to argue against it and form an independent opinion. He was also characterized by never participating in elections after 1948. The 1948 elections were the last ones in which he did vote. When he found out that they were apparently rigged, he decided not to go vote ever again. This caused him trouble, no doubt. Not so much from the secret police, as from the people who told him: ‘This is of no use. You are only going to do yourself harm.’ Even some relatives used to tell him that. ‘Look, you have a young boy and he won’t be admitted to university.’ This has proven to be true. When I was ten years old, my mother had died. That was yet another blow, I could not grasp why it had happened. There are things which a child’s soul can’t comprehend. At that moment, our priest took me aside and told me: ‘This has happened because the Lord has special intentions with you. He has a particular path for you.’ I did not understand it at all. Only later did I realize what he had in mind. He wanted me to study theology. My mother asked him on her deathbed to take care of my upbringing. And this really did happen. He took it seriously, gave me special tasks. We have had special discussions. This way he convinced me that my way was to be different from other children’s.”

“What we have had before our eyes was a swift retreat from the 1968 standpoints into a fearful environment. We could observe it in our professors. They were oh so courageous in 1968 but soon after changed their tone. They became very introspective, not at all commenting on what was going on. It all culminated in 1971 when on the day of the communist putsch anniversary, for the first time since 1968, the faculty raised the Czechoslovak and the Soviet flag on the building of the theological seminary. All of the students who lived in the seminary said: ‘What demoralization, this really is horrible.’ I then decided to act. I borrowed a stepladder from the janitor and took the flags down. I am still sorry about stories being told about me bringing down the Soviet flag. I brought down both. Not from mere anti-Sovietism. I took down both, claiming that there was no reason to celebrate 25th of February, that it was no holiday of ours. News about the missing flags and about me taking them down had spread instantly. The faculty secretary came to me and started to negotiate the return of the flags. We have had a pseudo-theological debate on whether it was the wall, the building or us who celebrated the anniversary this way. Only in the afternoon when he told me it was a criminal offence of theft, I returned them to him. The secretary asked the janitor to raise them again. She was a simple woman. She told him that she raised them once and that she would not do it again. So the flags were not flying for the whole day. The secret police find out very soon. They initially summoned some other students to testify. Upon return they told me that they were in Bartolomějská street because of the flags. I became really worried because back then one could serve time for a thing like that.”