František Stůj

* 1951

  • "I was shocked once when I saw the head of the local Public Security department - who was my neighbour, I remember the name too - brutally beating a boy with a baton as he was coming from tea. Every Sunday there were teas from five to ten, fun for the youngsters. The boy had long hair, he must have got a bad look, or they were hitting it head on. I was shocked. At the time I thought, 'They're different to what we're being served, after all.' I also got kicked out of the café from the Hotel Prague when I went there for a snack as a 17-year-old. Two gentlemen called me to a table and threw me out, saying I had Texas jeans and was hairy and stuff. So there were such tentative touches with power too, but no heroic revolt."

  • "We just lived our lives. To become engaged and to find out how it is politically and so on... The fact is, I got the baton too. That was the festival in Bublava. We went there and it smelled a bit like a protest. We didn't realise how dangerous it was and we went there. Suddenly an anton arrived, we hopped on another vetry that was going to take us to safety, only it was already surrounded by policemen with dogs. And I remember the moment when I was coming to the end of the barrow and there was a policeman with a dog and a baton and he said, 'Come on. Come on.' I knew it was bad, so I jumped off. I landed on all fours and I had it. About three blows and a great bruise. So that was my only revolt against the regime at the time."

  • "Then the music was around us and we wanted to try it out. So we practiced and practiced, it must have been awful. And I know when the tanks came in '68, we didn't have to go to school. A friend of mine came over and said, let's go play. So we used that event to go and play. Of course, then it got serious. I remember here in the square in '68 there were a lot of young people sitting on the pavement. It was people power in terms of numbers. They sat and waited for the armoured vehicle to come, and they just wouldn't let it go. But then the OT [armored personnel carrier] arrived with a machine gun - and that's like shooting sparrows. We went back there again and that's how we lived through the occupation. What the consequences of that were is another chapter."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Kraslice, 16.03.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 02:24:55
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The bruise from the baton was my only revolt against totalitarianism

Frantisek Stůj with the band Rébus in Severka, Kraslice, 1980s
Frantisek Stůj with the band Rébus in Severka, Kraslice, 1980s
zdroj: archive of a witness

František Stůj was born on 7 February 1951 in Kraslice in Krušné hory. His parents, Karel and Anna Stůj, moved to the former Sudetenland from the interior after the Second World War and became employees of the later nationalised Amati company. His father had already been a member of the Kladno Philharmonic Orchestra in his hometown and continued to play the wind instrument in Kraslice. He attended the local school and during his studies he learned to play the accordion, which was later replaced by the guitar. In the sixties, he and local young men formed the big beat band Next Stars and he was also active in the bands Rébus or The Rascals or in a dance orchestra. In the late 1960s he trained as an electrician. After completing his military service, he studied at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory and after one year transferred to the State Conservatory in Pilsen. In 1978 he began teaching at the Folk Art School in Kraslice and six years later became its director. At the same time he accepted membership in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In 1987 his older brother emigrated to Canada. Since the 1990s, he served several terms on the town council. He initiated the realization of the multipurpose hall of the Kraslice Elementary School. Among other things, he is the chairman of the Kraslice Entertainment Orchestra and a member of the board of directors of the Kraslice Railway Museum. At the time of filming, the witness lived there (March 2024).