Petr Fleischmann

* 1949

  • "I tried to explain to my classmates where some of their ideas lead. They led to the creation of a social issue that Czechoslovakia is trying to overcome right now and get out of it. It was already after the Soviet intervention, in August 1968. There were interesting sentences, one is so funny. The sentence was, 'You may have tanks, but we have Coca-Cola, and that Coca-Cola is the same form of oppression as those tanks in your country.' Or the fact that I am said to be so critical of what is happening in the Soviet system because I am traumatized by it. And how is that possible - after all, it's not so bad, because when comparing the socialist system with the capitalist one, maybe it's better. In short, if you put the leftist in front of what he prefers in the end, the Soviet system may have come out of it a little better. Because if there really is an enemy for us leftists, it really is capitalism ’. I must say that those of my Sorbonne classmates who coined these left-wing ideas were often children from very, very good, bourgeois families. Eventually, when they changed their minds, they became good stewards of their parents' property. ”

  • "We specified in the appeal that the Czechs can come at a certain time and meet the French, who can take them home and accommodate them. I was sent there because I could speak Czech and could interpret between French people and Czech refugees. It was not my first experience, so as a Czech I dare to criticize some Czechs. Some very embarrassing situations happened there. Some Frenchmen generously offered accommodation, but their offers were rejected because it was not on the subway and so on. The demands of some refugees were really incredibly exaggerated, and I would say insulting for those Frenchmen who left disappointed when no one wanted to stay with them, because they lived in the suburbs of Paris, for example, which did not suit some refugees. "

  • "The homeland, the homeland, cannot be blamed for the fact that the emigrant has any illusions about her, that he will unravel her when he had no way to confront her. The homeland is not to blame, it is a country like any other. Another thing is that after being fascinated by the fact that one can communicate in one's mother tongue, one finds that the content he says is completely different from what is in the minds of the people to who one is speaking. It is simply a different way of perceiving things. So there were difficulties in communication. And also, as I had a hard time explaining to the French in 1968 what real socialism or communism was, so here again I came across incredible illusions concerning the so-called capitalist world. "

  • "I slept at my parents' place and I knew that Brezhnev was going to come to Paris. When, suddenly, around nine o'clock in the morning, someone rings the doorbell, there are two gentlemen there, asking if Petr Fleischmann lives there. So I introduced myself to them and they told me that they had the honor of telling me that the Ministry of the Interior was offering me a week-long stay in Corsica. I already knew what it was about, because someone was telling me that at the time of the visit - I think Khrushchev in the fifties - there was a similar matter, ie. to isolate certain elements so that they do not come into contact with the Soviet potentate in question, which visited Paris. "

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha , 26.01.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 04:18:44
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha , 09.02.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:15:31
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 3

    Praha, 22.02.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:12:54
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

„You are oppressed by Soviet tanks, we by the capitalist Coca-Cola, „my French classmates used to tell me.

Petr Fleischmann in 1986
Petr Fleischmann in 1986
zdroj: pamětník

Petr Fleischmann was born on June 15, 1949 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, on the outskirts of Paris. Both of his parents came from an intellectual, creative background. Ivo Fleischmann was a poet, novelist, translator, literary historian and diplomat, Stanislav‘s mother, called Staša, was a photographer. The Fleischmanns lived in Paris from 1946 to 1950; Ivo worked here at the Czechoslovak embassy. In 1950, they returned to Prague, where Petr lived with his parents until he was 15 years old. In 1964, the Fleischmanns again moved to Paris, where his father was sent as a cultural councilor. Peter graduated from the Jacques Decour High School in Paris, then he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, and later, in the 1970s, he graduated in history and civilization from the European University Institute in Florence. In May 1968, he was arrested by mistake and then immediately released by the French police during student, left-wing riots in Paris. In August 1968, Petr translated for news reporting of French radio station Europe 1 the real-time reports about the events in Prague, for example the speech of Alexander Dubcek after his involuntary return from Moscow. In 1969, the Fleischmanns decided to stay in France and applied for political asylum. In 1971, due to Leonid Brezhnev‘s state visit to Paris, Peter was one of 50 asylum seekers wrongfully detained by the French Interior Ministry and isolated for a week on a „holiday“ in Corsica to eliminate possible political unrest. Until then, Petr was not directly involved in politics, the reason for his isolation was probably a record of his detention during the May student events. Petr Fleischmann worked as a teacher in France, later as an assistant professor at the Institute of Political Science in Paris. He returned to his homeland after the Velvet Revolution, got married in Prague, and had his first son, while still commuting to work in Paris. The stress affected his health and he suffered a heart attack shortly after the birth of his first son. From 1992 to 1994 he was a member of the Czech Television Council, from 1994 to 1996 he was the editor-in-chief of Prima television news. From 1997 to 2006 he worked as the secretary of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and since 2006 as an adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee. He was a member of the editorial board of the cultural and political review Přítomnost, author of articles and works in the field of political science. In 2005, he was awarded the title of Knight of the French National Order of Merit by the President of the French Republic, J. Chirac. Michel Fleischmann‘s younger brother has been the Czech Republic‘s ambassador to France since 2021.