Vladimír Líbal

* 1954

  • "The very last performance of Pepík's garage was in Pilsen, in the so-called Hi-fi club. It turned out that someone reported it. It ended with an indictment of sedition, because there was a nude scene, the so-called bare scene. But it was an excuse, of course. We were tried by today's President of the Administrative Court, Mr Baxa, who had a clear assignment to convict us. It was one of his first meetings. He was a commencing judge. And he, strangely enough, had the courage to free us."

  • "We still think that there must have been someone who reported it. I made an invitation, which was kindly printed for me by the pressman of the district cultural center, where I wrote a poem. Because the disco was supposed to take place in February, I wrote, 'Will it be February or won't it be white?' I didn't mean anything at all, for God's sake. They said I made it clear that February could be bloody. That was at the time of the anniversary of February. So that was an excuse. And they were already into it and there were interrogations. They asked, 'Why? For what reasons? What did I mean by that? ‘And so on.”

  • "When I see the film Pelíšky, it is exactly our family. My dad wrote to my mom a menu for each week. When I went to a place where my dad was, I had to knock. When I said 'hello', he brought me back and I had to say 'honor to work, Dad'. When I pronounced the word 'Russians' in 1968, I was slapped. Today, I realize that our family in Mělník was perceived by the prism that my father had a high position within the party, which I did not realize as a child. But that's just the way it was. However, I would say an essential thing. I know for sure that my father was a really convinced communist, not a careerist. He didn't have time for us, he went to meetings, there was faith. Just the normal belief that communism would improve our lives. It was there and according to that, it more or less turned out after 1968."

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    Plzeň, 03.03.2017

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    délka: 01:57:02
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State Security officers were doing a house warrant at my place and my neighbors thought I was a criminal

Vladimír Líbal was born on November 11, 1954 in Mělník. His father Miroslav Líbal was a high-ranking CPC official and commander of the People‘s Militia in the Mělník district, but after 1968 he was expelled as part of the purges in the Communist Party and removed from the position of the economic deputy of the Mělník shipyards. In 1970, Vladimír entered the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Prague. He was not accepted to study at the university and after two years of the compulsory military service he began working in the district cultural center Mělník, where he was in charge of working with amateur artists. He organized cultural events with his friends, which attracted the attention of the State Security. He was interrogated many times, and house searches were carried out at his home. He was charged with public sedition in 1986, but was found not guilty by a court. In 1987, he signed the Charter 77. In November 1989, he headed the Civic Forum in Pilsen. After that he was a member of the Czech National Council for two years, then he worked as the head of the Department of Culture of the Pilsen City Hall and at the Regional Office in Pilsen.