"As far as the petition is concerned, we were involved. We had signature sheets, we signed and collected signatures of other people and then we took it to the Archbishopric in Prague to Cardinal Tomášek. We had a pile of signatures, I don't remember how many, but enough. I don't know if we had known before, but Mr. Cardinal had health problems with his bronchi, but I know that we took some herbs, some tea. And I also went there with a girl, we arrived there and handed it over. We didn't see Mr. Cardinal - maybe out of caution, they didn't know who we were, so we passed the signature sheets through some of his secretaries. But we didn't see Mr. Cardinal. But that wasn't so much important to us, what was important to us was that we were carrying a pile of signatures and we felt good that we had done a little something for it too."
"In the beginning I was taking care of some device there [at Tesla] - I refilled liquid nitrogen, and I had a little feeling that they didn't know what to expect from a physicist. But then I was supposed to make some preparations and try to figure out microscope photography for the leaflets and that sort of application work. I was there for 11 years. And in 1991, after the coup happened, I'll admit that I dusted that idea off again, that I thought, `Couldn't I start teaching now?' because it started to go downhill at Tesla. You could see that Tesla was sinking. They started dismissing people, things weren't going well, business was slowing down. The people who were running it were obviously not able to compete with the West when that country opened up. Something had to change, and there were very skilled people there - these people ended up in three companies that still run electron microscopy in Brno today. One third of the electron microscopes in the world are made in Brno. And those people grew up here at Tesla. So the people were smart, but the management was probably not worth much, so it slowly declined."
"Sometimes it's tough. When you're walking with a kid who's in the second third grade and you're talking. You ask, where are you from? And he says he's from Mariupol. At that time it was the worst, when Mariupol fell and was totally liquidated, and he tells you he's from there, and you know that he and his mum have nowhere to go back to. Their houses are long gone. So if one ever hesitates whether to help or not to help, it only takes a few experiences like that to make you understand that you have to."
Miloš Winkler was born on 26 September 1950 in Brno to Milada and František Winkler. He grew up with his brother Zdeněk, two years older. From the age of 17, Miloš Winkler organized activities with Catholic youth - one-day trips gradually grew into holiday camps that did not suit the pre-November regime. Between 1969 and 1974, he studied physics at the Faculty of Science in Brno, and in 1982 he defended his doctorate in natural sciences (RNDr). From 1978 he worked at a military research institute (Research Institute 070 Brno), from where he had to leave after two years because of his religious activities. He joined Tesla in Brno, where he stayed for the next ten years, during which he continued to organize camps for (not only) Catholic youth. After the Velvet Revolution (in 1991), he started teaching at the Brno Episcopal Grammar School. In 2024, he was living in Brno and continued to organize children‘s camps, including for children from war-affected Ukraine.
First Holy Communion of his brother Zdeněk. From left: father František, grandmother Josefa Winklerová, mother Milada, bottom right Miloš Winkler, next to him brother Zdeněk, 2nd half of the 1950s
First Holy Communion of his brother Zdeněk. From left: father František, grandmother Josefa Winklerová, mother Milada, bottom right Miloš Winkler, next to him brother Zdeněk, 2nd half of the 1950s
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