The communists arrested both parents and executed a cousin
Stáhnout obrázek
Josef Pavlíček was born on 21 December 1937 in Šišma (Přerov district) where his parents owned a farm with about 10 ha of land. Father Josef Pavlíček joined the Communist Party in 1945 but was soon expelled because he opposed the forced collectivisation after February 1948. In the summer of 1950, the Pavlíček family sheltered members of the Hory Hostýnské anti-communist resistance group who ambushed the local chairman of the farming cooperative (JZD) while in the village. The resistance fighters included Josef Pavlíček‘s nephew Sigmund Bakala who was later sentenced to death and executed. Josef Pavlíček‘s father was arrested in February 1951 and sentenced to 15 years in prison and forfeiture of property for ‚aiding anti-state activities‘ later in July. He was released on amnesty in 1960. His wife Františka Pavlíčková was also imprisoned in the 1950s for alleged theft of socialist property. At the time of his father‘s arrest, Josef Pavlíček Jr. was in Plzeň in a locksmith apprenticeship. Having graduated, he returned to Šišma, worked briefly on the railway in Přerov, then in Olomouc and finally at Meopta in Přerov until retirement. In the 1960s and 1970s he was able to complete his secondary and university education and work in a management position. He was married twice. After the Velvet Revolution, his father was fully rehabilitated and in 2012 he was certified in memoriam as a participant of the Third Resistance. At the time of filming in 2023, Josef Pavlíček Jr. lived in Přerov.
