“Another important thing was the general strike that the Prague Civic Forum had announced for Monday November 27th. We joined it as a force, created by uniting different Civic Forums which had been formed during Saturday and Sunday. There were thousands of people gathered at the square on Monday. It was interesting that everyone gathered the way they had been used to, that is facing the local National Committee that was silent and didn’t react in any way. I entered the National Committee and found a couple of cowering professional operatives. Not even the head of the National Committee was there. The vice-president, comrade Blahušková, was there and she was retreating away from me as you do from revolutionaries – as we know it from 1789, when you’re scared that you’re going to get impaled on a pitchfork. And I tried to explain to her that something needed to be done, that someone would have to talk to the people, otherwise anything could happen. I found my way to the balcony and at the same time shouted down from it that we needed a sound system. People from below shouted: ‘Let them turn the radio on! They have it there!’ The staff was not eager to do it. Some guys from the rock band ‘Gevelop’ showed up and they brought two speakers and an amplifier up there in the speed of light. And they really set up a little platform there, from which it was possible to address the crowd at the square, so then we had an improvised meeting where we read statements about the general strike and so on. And that was a major breaking point in Brod I think, as it was everywhere else for that matter.”
“I went to Gymnasium in 1977 which was, of course, the time of the Charter 77. As nine graders we already sensed that very strongly. I remember a rather fierce conversation with comrade Hrbáčová who stressed that we should know about an attempt of the anti-socialist powers that had appeared. Back then, my loyal friend and I asked her to show us the Charter. She said that it wasn’t necessary because the Party authorities had read through it and assessed it, so there wasn’t a reason for us to read it and assess it as our intellect was unequal to such complex issues. That’s what’s in my memory from January 1977 and also the way we perceived it as something we should be interested in. I remember when I later actually came by the Charter, I found it so boring that I almost didn’t finish reading it. It’s about two pages of documents and I didn’t understand what the problem was. But later in our group sessions we somehow explained to each other what the problem had been. But I must say that the tediousness of the text surprised me, especially given all the reactions to that we had seen.”
“In the museum I immediately found out that it had been run by a member of the Communist Party, which had been his basic qualification and pretty much the only one. So, I made use of that and did my own stuff – studying John Amos Comenius really dutifully. I also found out that I could only dream about a promotion. Because the director said: ‘You are the young cadre here, if you join the Party, you’ll be my chief Comeniologist.’ And I said: ‘On no account will I become a Party member.’ I later found out that they searched my desk regularly. Today I don’t understand how I could do that so thoughtlessly and carelessly. I used to leave information about the Charter in it, magazines called ‘Infoch’ which I would bring with me from Brno. He took them out of the desk and handed them over directly to the State Security in Uherské Hradiště. This experience was not pleasant, but it was also not in no way dramatic. For one thing I was prepared that this would happen sooner or later and for another they were really fair. I, instructed that you have to say that you refuse to testify because you are entitled to it in line with Article 100 of the Criminal Code, did refuse to testify, I signed the papers and they even drove me back. They even talked friendly to me. To this day I remember how they said: ‘And so what do you normally do in your job, doc?’ And I said: ‘Well, you know. It’s all paperwork. John Amos Comenius.’ And they replied: ‘Well that’s like with us. All paperwork. All paperwork, right?’ And I said: ‘Well, I guess we have something in common then!’”
“I of course remember how the school forced us to attend the civil defence exercises and May Day parades. But I also remember how us pupils took it as an opportunity for humor and various mischiefs. When you go to a lantern parade to celebrate the October Revolution, you take syringes and gas ampules and you burn other children’s lanterns. And that’s how you have fun during the October Revolution anniversary. When there’s the May Day parade, you can sabotage the parade sticks, you wave with broken sticks and you break your classmates’ sticks. That’s how you perceive things and the ideology doesn’t really enter into it that much. If I dig even deeper in my memories, I realize how unbearable were the regular events on the occasion of different workers anniversaries that we had to attend with our school. Another thing were the discussions with the witnesses, that was hard to endure as well. There were two types of witnesses. The partisans and the working-class leaders. They were either puffy men or these predatory types with weeping eyes who emphasized how they had contributed to the victory of the working class. That was also hard to stand, but later we found out that we can do some mischief-making even there. But we knew there were boundaries. I’m in no way saying that we were able to boo them off.”
“I had no doubt that it would end up well because the main part had already been behind us. Meaning that the communists were leaving the leadership and from then on everything would be good. What cast a shadow over this was the feeling I got when driving to the little villages near Uherský Brod to explain the newly emerging Civic Forums what was going on and to help and assist them if necessary. It turned out, for example, that the person leading a meeting might have a big problem. In the villages I often witnessed a situation when deadly enemies sat opposite each other and one said: ‘Let’s vote who the leader of the Civic Forum will be. How about you, James?’ And someone from the other side said: ‘James? This James here? But his grandpa was a communist! How could he possibly be in the Civic Forum?’ ‘You’re not the one to talk. You were the first one to join the collective farm!’”
Stanislav Zajíček was born on February 26, 1962 as the only son of the vet Stanislav Zajíček and educator Anna, née Vondráčková. His father died during a mountain climb in the Tatra mountains when he was four years old. In the summer of 1968, he moved with his mother to Brno to her new husband Aleš Babák. Soon after they witnessed the arrival of the occupation army. He was influenced by his performance in the drama club ‘Pirko’ in Brno, he also founded several bands with his friends (‘Glasses’, ‘Podchodem vchod’) and an amateur theatre group ‘Tak tak’. He graduated from the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno, majoring in Latin and Czech language and literature. He was in touch with dissidents from Brno during his university studies, such as Milan Uhde and Jaroslav Šabata. After graduation and the year-long compulsory military service he started working as a specialist in the John Amos Comenius Museum in Uherský Brod. There he initiated signing the petition for the release of Václav Havel (Initiative of the cultural workers) and the ‘Několik vět’ petition in the late 1980s. He was one of the movers of the change in Uherský Brod after November 17, 1989. He was elected to the Czech National Council in 1990 as one of the founders of the local Civic Forum, where he stayed until 1992. During the break-up of the Civic Forum in 1992 he became a member of the Civic Movement that did not get into the Parliament. He has lived in Brno since 1993 and has worked as a Czech and Latin teacher at the local Mathias Lerch Gymnasium.
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!
