Ing. Jan Vondrouš

* 1953

  • "We said: Well, it probably wouldn't be good for it to be... I'm not saying in German hands but in foreign hands. That's not socialism. People couldn't have anything under Bolshevik, not even the barber was private. They couldn't, in all that time... I believe we were the only ones in the socialist camp where the private was trampled into the ground like that. People couldn't do anything, they couldn't try anything. They went to Austria in December 1989 and saw how it worked there, that there were small shops and private businesses. If we let it out of our hands like that and leave it to the foreigners, what would those people be? They would be - in quotes - just employees again. They would be just employees again. And I don't think that was our job, this. That wasn't the job - just to fix the historic city. That city was to be repaired along with its citizens."

  • "We have prepared a concept for the transfer of assets. The district agreed to it, we paid nothing as part of the disposal, but we had to dispose of it dry. We had to get approval from Tomáš Ježek [Minister for Privatisation]. At the time, the chairman of the district privatization commission, Mr Srnec, and I drove to Prague in a Škoda 105, which was my company car. On Senovážné Square, where I think there is a shop or another bank today, there was the relevant ministry, where Tomáš Ježek was based. We arrived there, and the minister had no time, he was always busy. We were sitting there waiting. We sat downstairs and waited. It was about half past nine in the evening, and we were still sitting. And suddenly, around ten o'clock, the minister was leaving work to go home. So we caught him. He was also an Odist [ODA member], fortunately. So we caught him, and we said, 'Mr. Minister, take us, take us. [Tomáš Ježek:] 'And where are you from, boys?' 'From Krumlov. I'm the chairman of the privatization commission, and I'm the mayor.' 'Yes, you are ours, let's negotiate.' No favouritism. He was the chairman of the privatization commission and the Ministry for Privatization, so he had to hear why the district privatizer and the mayor came there. So, around 11:30 at night, we presented him with the concept. At the beginning, he said, 'Oh, no, boys, this won't work. You want to build communal socialism there. And we said, 'No, no. We do want to get it into private ownership, of course, but we want to get it there on our terms because we are representatives of the city, and we don't want to get it there on terms that are going to be determined by some office worker somewhere.' He was an office worker, but he understood this. We later developed clear rules that we presented to him. He signed that he agreed to it. And the property was transferred completely to Krumlov."

  • "First of all, those who brought me down to the town hall said, 'You are such a critic, you know how to do everything, so now come show off.' When someone tells you something like that, you either have to go for it, or you have to be quiet for the rest of your life. So that was one of the main reasons I went for it. But I have to tell you, I really didn't know what I was getting into. I suffered from naivety in the beginning. Gradually, I realised it wasn't easy. That I was going into something that was really my first time. It wasn't like before when one secretary of the national committee or chairman of the national committee would take over from another chairman of the national committee, take over the binders there, and take the same route basically. Alternatively, one mayor would hand over the files to the other mayor, and they would ride the same route. And they're set. Whereas here, really, one era has ended, and another, a completely different era, has begun. Even just all the laws that were changing. Property that suddenly wasn't everybody's and nobody's anything. It was a completely new situation. New decision-making processes. No Ferman from the Communist Party of the Czechoslovakia and eventually from the district. Independence in certain areas. New laws. The law on municipalities. So a completely new era, which was not entirely simple."

  • "I guess I was shaped by the fact that I didn't like Bolshevik. For thirty-eight years, or however long, I lived in an unfree era. Although nothing too bad happened to me, it was an unfree period. It was an unfree era, we couldn't go anywhere, we could only say some things. I remember about two years before the revolution, I told some people I thought were normal, 'It doesn't make sense, look, it needs some change', and they told me, 'You wouldn't want capitalism here, would you?' I told them, 'I'd like that, I'd like that,' and they were totally freaked out."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    České Budějovice, 20.03.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:08:52
  • 2

    České Budějovice, 29.03.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:51:13
  • 3

    České Budějovice, 17.05.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:36:03
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

We were very interested in making something happen under democratically established rules

Jan Vondrouš, 1993
Jan Vondrouš, 1993
zdroj: Witness archive

Jan Vondrouš was born on 26 September 1953 in Pilsen to Marie and Bořivoj Vondrouš. His parents had never been members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and from an early age, they led their son to a similar mindset. His dissatisfaction and disagreement with the communist regime culminated in 1989 when he signed a petition called Several Sentences, which he then actively spread in southern Bohemia. He was a direct participant in the November 1989 demonstration in Prague. On 19 November 1989, he was at the birth of the Civic Forum (OF) and actively participated in the Velvet Revolution in Český Krumlov. He participated in transferring power from the communist leaders in the Český Krumlov region to the OF. He ran as a candidate for the Civic Forum in the first free municipal elections. In 1990, he became the first post-war mayor of Český Krumlov to emerge from democratic elections, serving over two terms until 1998. He was one of the main initiators and creators of the post-Soviet transformation of Český Krumlov into a centre of cultural tourism. In 1991, he joined the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) and later the KDU-ČSL. After leaving politics, he opened a puppet museum and wine shop called Krumlov Inspirations, which he still runs today (2023). In 2023, he lived with his wife, Hana Vondroušová, near Český Krumlov in Slupenec.