Petr Ouda

* 1953

  • "But it wasn't about the Charter at all, they already knew about us. But then actually... When I came out, there was nothing I could do, I couldn't defend myself. Because I was in jail. And there was a court, as I said, they convicted a lawyer. Well everything was prepared in advance; it was pretended absolutely everything. So, we all went as the witnesses and we all got a false statement." - "Wait... Three months before, the state security officers came to see you..." - "Well, no, I already knew there was something. And I didn't know what at all. So, they took me to Most for the trial, and I got two more years there." - "And it was because of the Charter, you said?" - "It was because we were at Mr Chmel. It is said that the Charter was signed there, they said. It wasn't true at all." - "You didn't have a chance to defend yourself at all." - "I couldn't defend myself at all. I'm saying that even the lawyer got nine months, because he couldn't stand the bullshit there anymore."

  • "I was just up there for three months with those cripples, with people who cough like a consumptive. I worked as a house helper there, I drove them to the doctor and stuff like that. And then they realized that I was probably not that sick, so they put me down to that labor camp. There was Kovošrot and there was a Škoda Ostrov nad Ohří. There they made trolley buses. There they put me to Kovošrot to work there. It was just as they show everywhere, unreal. A pile of scrap metal and they made me work with the electric meters on the current. They had been disassembled into iron, copper and aluminum screws. And eleven pounds was the standard a day. Of those screws. He brought me a wheel of it, dumped it there. I said, 'Hmm.' And he said to me, 'I'll bring you at least four more wheels.' It wasn't possible to make it in time, the norm just wasn't possible. Fortunately, I had a friend there again, a criminal, but from Teplice, who worked as a boss there. So, he always added something to me to have the standard, otherwise I would go to the hole."

  • "One thing happened there. I had a friend there, and when we left work, the policeman said something to him there. And he just - we had the backpacks like that - and he hit him with the backpack like that. The policeman. They immediately arrested him, put him in a hole. And the next day it turned out that he allegedly hung himself for a correction. They killed him. So, you had to be careful there. Talking bullshit ok, but to be careful..."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Praha, 13.06.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:54:28
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

People were worried about children or work. I said to myself: I don‘t care, just kill me

Petr Ouda in 2019
Petr Ouda in 2019
zdroj: Post Bellum collection

Petr Ouda was born on August 14, 1953 in Teplice. At the age of sixteen, he left home and, as a wandering singer, he moved among independent North Bohemian youth. He trained to be a plumber, then worked in the national company Báňské stavby. Due to his nonconformism, he was constantly chased by the police. He was convicted for the first time in 1972, due to the removal of the Soviet flag during a trip to Mikulášovice in North Bohemia, and then spent nine months in the prison in Ostrov nad Ohří. After his release, he collaborated with the activist, musician and publisher František Stárek and became even closer to the North Bohemian underground subculture. He signed the Charter 77 Declaration; he also helped to spread the document and gained more signatories. In the second half of the 1970s, he was imprisoned again, first for a minor offense and later for the alleged perjury in the trial of Jiří Chmel. After his release, he found refuge in a community of friends from the underground, who, under the leadership of Jan and Květa Princ, lived in a former rectory in Robeč and a farm in Mastířovice pod Českým středohořím. After being forced to leave the Mastířovice house, he was given an apartment in a block of flats in the nearby village Hošťka. He spent the late 1980s in Prague, and in the 1990s he ran a rock club in Teplice.