Mgr. Josef Hladík

* 1951

  • “The first gatherings in the square in Levice were very unconfident, neutral, there was no sound system. And later I learned we were being monitored by the StB from somewhere in the attic rooms in the municipal building. The gatherings also featured workers of the CPC apparatus, who were mostly booed off. But we learned to discuss. It is absolutely impossible to compare it with the situation in Prague, in Bratislava – the number of people participated, plus there were mostly people from the Charter, deposed artists, standing on the platform – Marta Kubišová in Bratislava, then Karel Kryl. I remember those events. In Levice it started very shyly and very carefully. Subsequently, we left the square for the Youth Club on Vojenská Street, where it, hats off especially to Dr. Eva Sahligerová, was beginning to make sense. There were already civic views and civic courage was developing.”

  • “At the next plenary meeting of the District National Committee in Levice, the representatives of the Communist Party no longer sat at the head of the table. I attended the meeting as a member of the planning and construction committee for the Mochovce power plant, because we had quite a lot of demands for housing construction. Two members of the Federal Assembly were present. In the discussion, I was the only one and, perhaps, the first to present myself officially. I wrote down a few lines very quickly and asked that the District National Committee plenary approve the mandate for these two members of the Federal Assembly so that they’d propose the dismissal of the President of Czechoslovakia Gustáv Husák. There were suddenly murmurs coming from the assembly. Naturally, it was already known in plenary or among the present that the November events were on, but there were communist chairmen of National Committees and Communist Party deputies present, and none of them dared to make such a proposal. The District National Committee plenary meeting naturally did not approve it, then one of the MPs of the Federal Assembly stepped forward and said that Comrade Husák was such a great man and politician that he knew himself what to do.”

  • “Prague companies Škoda Praha, Potrubí Prague, Elektrotechnické závody Praha, Armabeton Praha and others brought “A Few Sentences” to the construction site of the nuclear power plant. It was a petition of the Charter 77 movement that called for the release of political prisoners and reforms in general. A few nuke engineers signed it. It was mostly boys one to four years after college who had internships in Jaslovské Bohunice and got in touch with those construction workers. A few days after the petition was signed, their names were already read in Radio Free Europe broadcast. Then a deputy came to me and said: 'These people must be dismissed.' It was the summer of 1988 ('89, in fact – editor’s note). And I tell him: 'No, I will not sign the notice, because they didn’t cause any trouble, didn’t come drunk, didn’t cause damage to the factory, their work discipline is in order. On what grounds am I to give them notice?' 'Then it will be you who gets dismissed.' Well, you can try to have me fired, but it’s not possible, the law – Workers’ Statute – applies here.' I know that people from the district council of the party then came there completely furious, they had bloody eyes. They were enraged at how it was possible that someone signed “Niekoľko viet” at the construction of socialism."

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    Bratislava, 22.05.2019

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Socialist regime wanted to turn my sister into my class enemy

Josef with Alexander Dubček
Josef with Alexander Dubček
zdroj: Archív pamätníka

Josef Hladík was born on June 22, 1951 in Břeclav (South Moravian Region). He comes from relatively poor conditions, he has five older siblings. He studied at the secondary vocational school in the field of steel structures fitter for Klement Gottwald New Steel Works in Ostrava. He lived with his parents and siblings in Břeclav in the local part of Charvatská Nová Ves. In 1972 he married and moved to Levice, where he started a family. From 1973 to 1978 he attended the evening technical school in Levice. He changed several occupations, first he worked as a fitter, later as a foreman fitter in Levice, then as a garage foreman in the District Road Administration. Subsequently, from 1978 to 1983, he remotely attended and graduated from the Faculty of Law at Comenius University in Bratislava. Since 1978, during and after studies, he worked as an executive at the Department of Transportation at the District National Committee, ensuring the construction of a transport network at the site of Mochovce nuclear power plant. In 1984 he started working at the Mochovce power plant as the Head of Personnel and Social Development. He substantially contributed to establishing of VPN (Public Against Violence) in Levice and engaged in the Public Against Violence movement alongside his daily job. Since February 1992, he was also the Chairman of the District Council of the Civic Democratic Union (ODÚ). He left both VPN and his work in 1992 and moved back to Moravia with his family in 1993.