Jaroslav Chromek

* 1956

  • “Five or six times a year we used to come to Berlin or Dresden. Each year we used to come on vacation to a spa town of Zinnowitze. It was quite cheap there and even being hairies, we were the kings there. Each time we arrived they were waving at us from the pub from far away. They were making everything for us to stay. Using the socialistic company benefits many people used to visit. Factory people had their camps full. But they only drank a single beer and went away. But we sat at the table and until the evening we managed to drink around thirty beers, twenty shots and three lunches each. We left hundred marks there each. So when we were approaching the pub, we went around the queue and the inn and the innkeeper opened the door for us. We even had our own table. Others were angry as we had long hair and dirty patched trousers. The doors were always opened for us though. It was all cool as each year we used to come back there for holidays.“

  • “A woman from the National committee came in, sent the chimney sweeper to check the chimney and then two policemen with a man, who claimed his wallet was stolen. But they dragged him sort of weird, so the policemen went to have a look what was going on. Then they called the state police, which surrounded the place. Every hour someone came to ask a strange question, but they did not ban the event. If it had happened in Bohemia, they would have banned it immediately. For example, during the concert of Ota Veverka, where there was a provoker, the traffic police came, which helped the public officers, there were only two standard policemen and a secret one. Otherwise all of them were only helpers. They knew nothing, but as someone set it up, they quickly took everyone around and send them on spot.“

  • „Back then the Three sisters band was playing. We left and they remembered they left the singer on the riverbank. We had to talk to the captain to get back on the pier, get him on-board and keep flowing. It was all crazy there. The punkers came and we had to guard it all. The punk girls wanted to beat up a skinhead at the toilet so I had to get between them, tear them apart and calm them down. In the deck the hairies were drinking and up on the deck the punkers were dancing. The captain was chasing me to calm them down, as they bounced the boat by dancing. So I was constantly running between the hairies, punkers, skinheads and the captain. I kept calming them down, but it all ended up all right and no one drowned.“

  • “They arrested me in Orlová, where three buses full of policemen came to the concert back then, which surrounded the garden, where they played and they took the underground folks marching. I don’t know why they took me, but I ended up in alcohol crash station. They left me with my old bag with a litre of wine, a snack, and knife and locked me up in a cell. I took it all out, sliced the bread with a knife and drank wine. In half an hour a policeman peeked in and saw it. Four other policemen rushed in, took me to the crash station and locked me up for the whole night.“

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    Haňovice, 05.05.2017

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Underground is with you

Jaroslav Chromek - 1988
Jaroslav Chromek - 1988
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Jaroslav Chromek was born on 23 December, 1956 in Šternberk. He spent his childhood in a suburban part of Olomouc. During vacation in his basic military service his brother Karl introduced him to a group of Olomouc hairies, which later became his second family. In 1979 his parents threw him out of the house and he lived together with his friends in Velký Týnec and then in Olomouc. As a carpenter he worked at Pozemní stavby. In 1980 he got married and moved to Senice in Haná. Three years later the marriage broke up and the witness worked in Brno for half a year and since 1986 in Prague, were he began to meet up with underground folks. Apart from visiting pubs he participated in anti-regime events too. He attended the Lennon marches and demonstrations. He used to get samizdat related to music from František Stárek, which he then distributed to his friends in Olomouc. During the weekends he attended secretly organised concerts all over the Czechoslovakia. In December 1986 in the Labourers house in the Olomouc part of Černovír he organised his first underground music festival with band such as Psí vojáci, Stará dobrá ruční práce, Klikoroh, Moderní doba or Absolutní bezedno. There were over three hundred people attending. Eventually the festival ended up  police forces. Then Jaroslav Chromek organised several other secret concerts and music festivals, for example in Dubčany (1986), in a pub U Potoka in Mariánské valley (1987), in a pub Na Pile and U Kaple in Olomouc (1988 and 1989), in a pub Na Hrádku in Prague or at a steamboat flowing at the Vltava river (1987). Several times he experienced the attacks of police forces and many times he ended up being driven to the police station. Obviously he was also active during the revolutionary days of November 1989. With his friends he organised a meeting in the Olomouc square with a banner: Underground is with you. In 1991 Jaroslav Chromek returned back to Haná. He re-married again and bough a devastated farm in Haňovice near Litovle. He repaired the building and since 1995 he organises music festivals there. Amongst others there are also his old friends attending and the band balled Dirty underwear that Jaroslav Chromek founded with his friends already in 1989 also performs there.