“That was Olga Borisovna Lepešinská, a Soviet laboratory worker, who discovered that the life starts in nail dirt etc. I do not remember all that nonsense. Later there was Lysenko. It was the two of them; Lysenko and Lepešinska. That was obligatory (reading) back then. Another thing was Mendel. Until 1965 he was a bourgeois co called scientist, priest and so on. Then due to Russian physicists… Stalin was dead already… who very much tried to avoid all the messing about with science… so then Mendel was finally rehabilitated.“
„That was when I wrote for the Nature magazine, so I got an invitation from Harvard (from the professor Marmur). I went to the director to inform him… I was all shaking with excitement, as I actually had a paper from Harvard… And he told me: ‚Paleček, I will not let you go.‘ And that was the end of fun of course. And I replied: ‚Can I write him you will not let me go then?‘ And he responded: „No, no! Simply write them you cannot go now and they will forget about you soon.‘ So it was that all the letters I got had to go to the director first, and only when he signed a copy, they could be posted. And when he did not, they were not sent. So it would have happened so that I would never go, but what actually happened… In 1961 there was an international biochemistry conference in Moscow. And the professor Marmur, who went to Moscow, wrote me he would stop by in Brno. And he went to the director (Herčík) and talked. Then he left and there was another, who also invited me. That was Larry Grossman. They just kept asking, why I have not left yet. After that he (director) changed a bit. He stopped saying he would not let me go, but still it was unknown, whether I would or would not go. And that lasted… for two years. I actually believe that he (director) was much afraid of me staying there and him being made accountable for it.“
“Following the return it was really fine, the first day. I saw my friends and mum. Then a man came to me, a policeman in civil dress. I think he actually came to my home. And he began to question me. And he mentioned who I was dating back then… And who was her father. Then they questioned me whatever, and invited me for interrogations. I remember them asking me the same things again and again, but I do not remember what it was. They probably wanted to get me for something. Of course I was afraid. What was interesting as well. There was a meeting of all employees in the institute and the director said: ‚I was informed there is a spy in the institute.‘ I did not know for sure whether he meant me, but that was what I deducted. As I noticed a car following me walking in the street. I was walking through the field and then got out and the same car was there still. That was rather unpleasant. And then I got bitten by a tick. When I recovered, I had paresis, and could not brush my hair and so on… And with the memory… When I recovered and got out of the hospital… Again they were trying to question me, but I really did not know much stuff back then. My advantage was that they were asking me something I actually did know, but I could say, I did not know at all. But mostly I really did not know anything. And gradually it all ceased.“
Emil Paleček, a professor, was born in Žabovřesky in Brno on 3 October, 1930. As a boy he experienced the terrors of shooting in Kounic dormitory and bombing of Brno during WW2. Originally he studied a commerce academy and was interested in the foreigh trade. He got to study chemistry only later at the Faculty of Natural Science in Brno. He was truly keen in biochemistry, which is the area he is a respected specialist today. In 2014 he won a prestigious scientific award in the Czech Republic called the Czech Head. Already in 1950s he proved efficacy of oscillographic polarography in the field of discovering human DNA. Although his work became world respected back then, the totalitarian regime refused to let him travel abroad. When he managed to fly to USA in 1962, he was considered a spy after his return and monitored by the secret police. The consequences of his foreign journey and also his marriage with a daughter of a political prisoner had a negative impact on his carrier also during normalisation in 1968. Emil Paleček is married with three children and has been working in the Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Science until today. Emil Paleček died in 30 October 2018.
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!
