"Well, but if I'm talking about myself, we had a bunch of about six guys from Rychlé šípy, so we were pioneers, but kind of pioneers. Because the Pioneers' House in Mlada Boleslav was made out of a former brothel and there were these individual bedrooms. And we rented those bedrooms, or they rented - they lent them to us, as a pioneer group. So we also borrowed one of these bedrooms as a clubhouse, and we were the six boys there, but we didn't do Pioneer, we copied the back of the Front where the Rychlé šípy were. That was four pausers each and we copied it and then we distributed it to Benešovka [Primary School]. So after about six months, they found out that they were actually spreading the Rychlé šípy there, so they kicked us out of the Pioneer and the clubhouse."
"Well, my grandfather's name was Vilém, Vilém Líhař, but the long 'i', because it bothered me for a long time afterwards - either short or long. My dad signed with a short 'i' because he had it calligraphically, he had it so nicely rehearsed, he has a beautiful signature. And I was bothered by my class teacher, why do I always write a long 'i', that I should have a short one too. So then they drove me to the point that my father then put a dot over the 'i', but they drove me to the point that I actually, I must have used that comma on some of those birth certificates, but then historically it was confirmed that my grandfather was also with a long 'i', so in the end my dad signed it wrong. That was a long-running tug-of-war over the comma or the period."
"Our case, my grandparents' case, was that in the end they joined the transport, they went to Germany, but my dad - he was just a dude. My dad joined the party so he could bring those parents back. He sought them out, and being a party man, he had some clout already, like political clout, or how should I say it, he was able to get those parents back. It was an amazing experience. But because Grandpa and Grandma didn't have a place to live, so for the first three years or so they lived in a second floor basement cubicle, in an apartment just above that Klinger factory, with a wooden toilet in front of the house, and they cooked on a Brucior, if you know, it was a kerosene stove like that, a spare. The cellar was without electricity, and they lit it with kerosene, and those people were wonderful. In the winter they used to shred feathers because they didn't even have blankets, so they had to make them themselves."
Eduard Líhař was born on 8 August 1943 in Mladá Boleslav. His mother, née Branzeová, came from a mixed Czech-German family from Teplice nad Metují, his father was from Boleslav. Both his father and grandfather worked for the company Laurin & Klement, later Škoda or Automobile Works, National Enterprise (AZNP) Mladá Boleslav. Mom‘s parents were deported from the Sudetenland to East Germany after World War II, and Dad managed to arrange their return. Eduard Líhař was interested in cars from an early age, and his uncle Vladimír Václavík, who owned a car workshop in Lomnice nad Popelkou, also had a share in this. He was involved in scouting and skiing, and as he grew up, his interest focused on motorcycles and cars. After finishing primary school, he graduated from the Secondary Industrial Engineering School in Mladá Boleslav in 1961 and joined AZNP as a technician, a part called Česana, where new and racing car models were tested. He completed two years of military service in Žatec, after his return he raced both motorcycles and as a co-driver in cars. He met many Škoda 3 formula racers and travelled through motorsport and capitalist countries. Because of this, the State Security Service (StB) investigated him on suspicion of industrial espionage. In 1982 he became head of maintenance at a housing cooperative. He and his wife Pavla raised two children, Filip and Lucie. After the fall of the communist regime, Eduard Líhař turned to private business in his favourite field. He lived his entire life in Mladá Boleslav, and died on 12 October 2024.
Witness with colleagues in the AZNP. Above left Václav Bobek, Oldřich Brunclík, Oldřich Horsák, Leoš Hnatevič, Milan Žid, Jaroslav Bobek, Miroslav Fousek, below left Bořík Podsedníček, Eduard Líhař, Jan Frydrych, Ladislav Knobloch, Petr Pulda
Witness with colleagues in the AZNP. Above left Václav Bobek, Oldřich Brunclík, Oldřich Horsák, Leoš Hnatevič, Milan Žid, Jaroslav Bobek, Miroslav Fousek, below left Bořík Podsedníček, Eduard Líhař, Jan Frydrych, Ladislav Knobloch, Petr Pulda
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