“... except it didn’t happen. That very day, 1 May 1953, Czechoslovak Television was to launch its experimental broadcast - you’re right to spell television with an ‘s’ - and there was a malfunction and suddenly the film scanner fell out. We had one thirty-fiver, there weren’t any others, and everything was in thirty-five format. And it broke. I wasn’t there, so they didn’t have any cameraman, no technician, nothing... The Central Committee [of the Communist Party - trans.] and the such were scared of live broadcasting like the devil is of the cross, they didn’t like it that we didn’t have it recorded. Because no one can delete it if it happens live. That’s why there were no debate programmes. Or there were, but they were prepared with excrutiating detail and under meticulous surveillance. Kind of cold... Jesus.”
“We dug trenches to the left of the road, some kind of B road, and the Russian - or Soviet, that is - captives were on the right. Nothing happened. We were guarded by the SA, those were jocks. We called them ‘canaries’ because their uniforms were kind of yellow, light brown. The Russians flew in with their fighter planes and started shooting. And the Russian [captives] scrambled over the road to us, and they shot them on the road right next to us. It was a massacre, you know? Well, and then we had to take a cart... But, what’s important... Those Ruskies were bastards. They knew full well where the Russians were and where we were, and they didn’t so much as touch us. They had it mapped out, they had intel, and they knew where the Russians were, and they shot them up a few metres, a dozen metres away from us, and not once did they hit us... And those were dum-dum shots, if you know what I mean? Those are nasty because they rip you up.”
“... they regarde me as a Utopian. That’s part of the package. I was called to the head’s office, or for a kind of interview (while already a teacher or assistant), that I was spreading fallacies and that I was exaggerating about the television, that nothing of the sort existed. Because I had been saying... I was a kind of visionary, and I reall enjoyed... I said that there will be big televisions, there’ll be screens, that there’ll be TV walls, that it will be in colour, that it’ll be recorded (the official television didn’t have that at the time). No one believed it, but I did. And so they told I was overdoing it. But I actually fell short of the mark! There’s much more today than I even imagined back then!”
Eduard Landisch was born on 9 February 1927 into the family of professional photographers in Prague-Karlín. Already as a child he showed broad artistic talent. He was assigned to forced labour in 1944, before completing the Upper School of Graphics. At first he did labour in a factory for weaving baskets and bags, then in ČKD (Czech-Moravian-Kolben-Daněk), and finally he was put to digging trenches near Hlučín for five weeks. After his return he began studying at the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, from which he took up the post of cameraman at Czechoslovak Television. It was a time when television cinematography was in its very beginnings, and Eduard Landisch thus became one of the founders of the craft in the Czech Republic. Besides his lifelong camera work, he lectured at the Department of Camera and Photography until his retirement. In 1989 he was awarded the title of Professor for his academic accomplishments, and he also received a state medal for his contribution to Czech television production.
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!
