“When they sentenced my father, it was tough on me and in January they called me into the training centre. We lived about five hundred metres in Novovysočanská boarding school. When you take a fast train to Prague and you come to Libeň, just a little bit on the left there is a cube building, a former boarding school. We used to walk cueing down to Harfa training centre. So they called me into the boarding school, there were two handsome men in leather coats and they informed me that it was decided I should cease my studies there and go to my mother in Arnoltice near Rýmařov, where they displaced her on December 23rd, 1952, when I was still in the boarding school. They came with a leader, Mr. Tatíček and others from the regional headquarters with a loading van and put her and my brother on and let them get off in Arnoltice at the end of a village in a house, which could even not be locked. With all they could bring in a van. I came back home from the boarding school for Christmas and didn’t even see them. So the comrades came to see me and said I should move in with her. That I should work there with her to keep the family together. And there we ought to work, my brother went to school and I was meant to work at the state farming estate.”
“I was gradually getting more. I was the youngest of all my colleagues. It was a good team. The oldest was called Kobza, he came from Siemens, where he worked on funiculars. And that Mr. Kobza said: ‚Boy, we got to do something about you, we got to get you to studies. In Olomouc will be only few applicants, they could accept you, lets apply to Olomouc.‘ I didn’t even know there was a university in Olomouc back then. But I got a refusal from the dean Fuka straight away. So he said: ‚Lets not give up, lets file a complaint to the central committee of the communist party.‘ So we wrote a complaint, that didn’t accept me anywhere and I got such and such predispositions, and a cooperation in the institute of physics and so on. But our secretary left for the afternoon so she could not type it. So I did using my two fingers and I remember until today that back then the central committee was located at the Prašná gate. So at ten o´clock in the evening I brought them my complaint. And threw it in the mail box. In a week´s time I received a phone call in the Elektromontážní factory. A comrade Svoboda called, who was in charge of high schools and academies. He asked me a couple of additional questions regarding the complaint and told me I should be invited to an entry interview in Olomouc soon.”
“At that time professor Keprt and a professor Havelka clearly stated, as they already had party instructions: ‚We shall support your scientific growth, you will make a candidature, but you cannot habilitate, neither can you teach.‘ They told me that straight away. When it got to the party level, they the head of the party organisation met me. He was a PE teacher and then they locked him up, as he used to charge students fees at summer dam courses and then he defrauded it. So they locked him up even as a party member. And back then he was the chairman of the party organization and said: ‚Listen, you are a good student, we shall give you a party application.‘ Jesus, it was like being stabbed with a needle. Well I didn’t say anything, and probably blushed, but didn’t argument anything. He met me again the next day: ‚Well it is over now. So someone informed him already. And I was so worried as I was scared to refuse. That was a big deal indeed. And how would I cope? Luckily fate took a different course. Someone said that I was a son of a gulag and he gave me a break.”
Jan Peřina was born on 11th November, 1936 in a family of Jan Peřina, who was the biggest farmer in the village of Odřepsy near Poděbrady. Since childhood he showed an extraordinary talent in mathematics and physics. His father refused to join the agricultural cooperative back in 1950s and was arrested and sentenced to prison for not fulfilling his agricultural ratios, which was a usual way the communists liquidated private farmers. His mother and brother were taken by force from their farm to a destroyed house in Arnoltice in Jeseníky. The witness finished electro-technical training in Prague and as a so called gulag´s son was not accepted to further studies. He was forced to work in agriculture. Finally he remained in Prague due to pedagogues, who recognised his extraordinary talent in technical fields and studied a higher technical college. He self-studied math and physics during evenings. Following many unsuccessful attempts to get to high-school studies his supervisors helped him advising to complain at the central committee of the communist party. That worked and he got to the Palacky university in Olomouc. Due to his original roots he was still meeting persecution on part of communists, yet through hard work he managed to become world recognised expert in the field of quantum optics. He is a holder of many prestigious scientific awards, amongst others also the Neuron award for the best Czech scientists.
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!
