Otakar Mika

* 1953

  • "I was a prisoner handler there, even though according to my military book I was not supposed to have a machine gun. The prisoner was working, I took him to the shower in the boiler room to take a shower. There were old hands there, we were bookmarks for them. 'Bookmark, I got you...' And everybody probably knows how that goes. And they actually attacked one, one like that - he looked like a little John Lennon, glasses, a weak boy, a weak piece, not letting his appearance show that he was going to defend himself. And because I had a bladed machine gun and a soldier with me, I didn't want to get involved, so I shouted at them. They sent me somewhere. I then took the prisoner to the jail and in my report I described the bullying I had experienced in the boiler room. The next day the unit commander called me in, I was five days short of the end of the military exercise. And he offered me to go home five days early. I didn't want to, because the fun on the train is especially good when you leave a military exercise. I didn't understand what was going on. Alright, but be careful!’ I didn’t understand what it was about. I can say that I crossed the kitchen and went with the dinner tray. There were two guys sitting there, I sat down, they took their trays, got up and walked away from me. I was a snitch, you don't forgive that in the army. You're a snitch and you can forget about any justice. I cut open my steak and found it was a piece of breadcrumb-coated rag on the floor. I'm not kidding, I've been there. Then in the evening I was careful, and the assistant warden had a look at me two or three times. That's unforgivable in this social environment. They felt that bullying young soldiers was one of the benefits of those who lasted a year and a half there."

  • "My father-in-law was a communist, a stationmaster from the Highlands, an impeccable man. He was in the party and before we decided to get married I wrote to him about signing the Charter. He wrote me a letter telling me that it was my business and if I stood by it, he understood. Coming from him, I have to say... a normal father-in-law would have talked his daughter out of it."

  • "Suddenly, I'm supposed to fix the doctor's sink. I went in there and the doctor was very unpleasant, she looked old, she had a very prominent nose. I found that the sink was draining and there was nothing there. She was talking dirty: 'Well, fuck it! Sit down. What did you have to do with the union in that meeting?' That's how she talked to me. - 'Look, Doctor, it's my business.' - 'It's not your business, watch them, they're bastards. They'll ruin your life, you've got to watch out. If you need anything, just ask and I'll help you.' I found out she was an old International Brigades volunteer from Spain, a communist really. She hated them, those normalising communists. They couldn't get at her because she was a doctor, but she had a wrinkle too. Then she called me about six months later. I came in, there was a guy sitting there, hair back. She said to me, 'Do you know this guy?' - 'Excuse me, sir, I don't know you, and I don't know why I have to confirm whether I know someone or not. She said, 'That's Franta Kriegl, he was in Spain too.' She was a medic and he was already a doctor. He used to go to see her, there were people like that in the mine during the normalisation period. Kriegl, who didn't sign in Moscow. And I was dragged into it because she thought that the young people were keeping their mouths shut, and suddenly there was somebody... I was lucky to have met such people."

  • "State Security had been monitoring this for some time, and Dr [Habáň] was trying to recruit young priests into the Dominican Order. There were also a lot of State Security officers, spies and informers in the Church. The Church was divided into those who had lost hope of any social change and joined Pacem in Terris. Then there was the other group that resisted. I was there and it was a painful thing for me. It was around lunchtime, it was cooking, there were about ten Dominicans, they were dressed in Dominican vestments. And Dominic Duka was there, if I'm not mistaken. Suddenly the bell rang. Chlum is a place of pilgrimage, the front of the church and then the ambulatory and it had to be opened. As a young boy I was sent to open it. Six or seven guys stood there, pushed me away and went in. They were State Security officers, a kind of commando. But I have to say that despite all the interrogations I went through at the State Security Sokolov and Cheb, I never experienced any harsh attack except for stupid things. Then I learned that an State Security policeman or a policeman from Plesná, who was in charge of me, confessed to me that he was paid 200 crowns for keeping an eye on me. I didn't want to believe him, I told him, 'Order a drink and we'll forget about it.'"

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Kraslice, 09.03.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 02:08:30
  • 2

    Liberec, 09.05.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 01:21:42
  • 3

    Liberec, 09.05.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 01:49:43
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The Communist gave the chartist his daughter. Her uncle sued the Plastics

Otakar Mika in the second half of the 1980s as a maintenance worker in Cremona Luby. To the right of him stands his colleague Vlastimil Kohout
Otakar Mika in the second half of the 1980s as a maintenance worker in Cremona Luby. To the right of him stands his colleague Vlastimil Kohout
zdroj: archive of a witness

Otakar Mika was born on 20 September 1953 in Litoměřice, he had a brother. The family moved to western Bohemia in the second half of the 1950s. His father worked as an innkeeper, his mother as a cook, and they often moved with their children to work in the hospitality industry. In 1968 they divorced and Otakar Mika soon left home and started working on the railway as a steam locomotive boiler cleaner. From 1969 to 1978, he went to Chlum St. Mary‘s to visit the Dominican scholar Peter Methodius Habáň, where he was educated. At the age of 18 he entered the apprenticeship of Civil Engineering. After his apprenticeship he worked in the brown coal mines in Svatava in the Sokolov region. In April 1977 he signed Charter 77, soon afterwards he got married and in 1978 his son was born. In the autumn of 1978 he enlisted for five months in the army, serving as a maintenance worker at the Lešany unit. After returning to civilian life, he worked for about two years in geological uranium exploration. In 1979 he had a daughter. He lived with his family in Luby, where he was employed by the Cremona musical instrument factory. The State Security (StB) listed him as a 3rd degree NO (hostile person) since 1983; his file probably did not survive. In August 1988 he took part in a demonstration in Prague on the 20th anniversary of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. He was also in Prague for the demonstrations for freedom and democracy on 28 October 1988 and 28 October 1989. In November 1989 he founded the Civic Forum in Luby. In 1990, he became the head of the Cheb District Office and was a member of the Civic Movement and later the Freedom Union. From 1994 to 1998, he served as mayor of Cheb, having been elected to the post on the ODS ticket. Since 1999 he has been the managing director of the Kraslice water company. In 2010, he became a non-elected deputy mayor for the Open Town Hall movement. In 2022, he served as mayor of Kraslice for one year. In 2024 he was living in Kraslice.