Daniel Fajfr

* 1952

  • "I wake up on the morning of the twenty-first of August, and I hear my landlord hammering: 'Mr. Fajfr, Mr. Fajfr, the Russians have taken us!' He was a man like a mountain, crying like a baby. He began to describe what the Russians were doing to them on the farm." - "Like during the war, as part of some partisan resistance?" - "Yes. They brought in some German prisoner and told them they'd pick him up in a fortnight and if he escaped they'd shoot him. So I perceived it [the invasion by Warsaw Pact troops], I knew it was a crisis, but I had no idea what the impact would be."

  • "When I came to school after that, I remember, I think in the second grade, that the teacher, who knew what kind of family I was from, would always say in front of the whole class if I didn't know something, 'Fajfr, Fajfr, blessed are the poor in spirit.' That made me feel sorry for the beatified and then they laughed at me."

  • "My mother and I, on a motorbike, drove through a village, I think Rimavská Sobota, and handed out some leaflets 'God's love embraces the world'. They rode on, they arrived in Banská Bystrica, they were hungry, so they went to eat in a cafeteria, they went out and there a man in a leather coat said: 'Is that your motorbike? Someone must have said that they were handing out Christian leaflets. So they secured them and all hell broke loose. They beat my dad senseless [unconscious], blood coming out of his ears and nose. Because they found in his backpack addresses from America and England of people who supported people in eastern Slovakia financially and with clothes. He was just returning from Eastern Slovakia and it happened in Banská Bystrica."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 27.03.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:06:54
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha, 09.05.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:00:04
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
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He was ashamed that his father was a preacher. Eventually he became one himself.

Daniel Fajfr in graduation photograph, 1970
Daniel Fajfr in graduation photograph, 1970
zdroj: Archive of the witness

Daniel Fajfr was born on 8 March 1952 in Gottwaldov, today‘s Zlín, to Vladimír and Jiřina Fajfr. His father, a doctor of law, worked as a lay evangelical preacher. In elementary school, he faced ridicule from teachers and classmates because of his faith. In 1961, the Communists took away his father‘s state approval to practice clerical activities, which happened three more times in the following years. In 1966, when his father was granted permission again, he was no longer able to preach in Moravia, so the family moved to České Budějovice. There Daniel Fajfr graduated from high school in 1970. From 1970 to 1976 he studied at the Faculty of Engineering of the Czech Technical University. In 1973 his mother died after a long illness. Two years later, his father married for the second time to the American Ruth Stewart. In 1977, he completed basic military service, which his superiors made uncomfortable for him because of his faith and his American stepmother. While working at Setuza, he worked as a lay preacher in Ústí nad Labem. In 1982 the authorities withdrew his state approval, which he regained in 1988. In the 1980s he was involved in smuggling illegal religious literature. In 1988 he began to devote himself fully to his work as a preacher of the Church of the Brethren congregation in Ústí nad Labem. In 2023 he lived in Ústí nad Labem.