Stanislav Frank

* 1955

  • "That day or the next day in the evening we met in the brewery museum, where my friend Franta Stoček worked as the head. He made his office available to those people, who wanted to do something with things around here. I know, that back then an idea was raised by someone: 'So let us found a Citizens' Forum as well, like they have in Prague.' - 'Alright, yes, let us found a Citizens' Forum.' - 'But you have to bring along some lawyers.' Franta Stoček brought me there as a lawyer, so that I could cover it all somehow legally. He said: 'This is no lawyer, we need some kind of advocate. Someone, who will stand by us in case it is needed.' And so the next day advocates from Plzeň came too and then something finally started happening."

  • "Once I was assigned. A Soviet delegation came there to visit, and because they were lawyers, they told me: 'You will go there with the cadre comrade Řezáč and the comrade Papež and simply with the comrades you will give them your attention, because they are lawyers, if they wanted to know something about the law.' And so he came with us to the red corner. There were our comrades there, basically millionaires and very sharp Stalinists, because there were quite a lot of them in the brewery. And they started throwing down shots of vodka and stakan Russian-style. They even made the Russians, who were somewhat cultured in comparison with them, to drink as well. And so I just sat there like that. I was extremely annoyed and it had to emanate from me, because I just was not talking. I did not sing Russian folk songs with them. The Russians did not ask about anything. And so I did not say anything. I did not say anything to anyone. I did not join in on their fun. I simply suffered there. When it finally ended after about an hour and a half, then one Russian came up to me to say goodbye and he uttered a single word: 'Izvinite.' I do not know, if he was apologizing for those comrades of ours. I rather interpreted it that he was apologizing for the occupation, which was back then still... At least I told myself it was like that. He apologized for something, which they had done to us."

  • "We were on holiday in the German Democratic Republic in eastern Germany. We returned just before that 21st of August. There were road bypasses everywhere, we were going back by car at night. Everywhere there were road bypasses. At the Umleitung [German for bypass] we could see tanks and soldiers, and so we were asking ourselves: 'What is happening? What is happening?' Or our parents were asking themselves anyway. We came home. They left me in Bernartice and drove to Plzeň. And that is when it started actually. Mother remained with us in Bernartice and in the morning, as I was getting up, on that twenty-first of August, there stood grandma and grandpa and mother at the radio. They were listening to the broadcasting about the occupiers coming in and they were all crying of course. Grandpa with grandma, who had experienced the war, were basically terrified of something similar, terrible, happening."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Plzeň, 15.02.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:53:02
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
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He told me: Join the party, you will have a wonderful future in front of yourself. And I responded by saying, that there are certain boundaries, over which I am not going to step

In a military uniform, 1979
In a military uniform, 1979
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Stanislav Frank was born on the 23rd of June 1955 in Plzeň. He came from simple means. His parents were not very interested in politics, but despite that joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia out of pragmatism. They wanted for their family to do well. But at thirteen years old young Stanislav witnessed the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies and the following normalization, which started to form his future political and moral worldview. He then finished studying a grammar school and applied to study law at Charles University. Due to his own moral principles he wanted to avoid mandatory military service as much as possible. But serving there he became closely familiar with arrogant state power, which hardened his worldview even more. After finishing mandatory military service he started working at Plzeňský Prazdroj at the post of a lawyer. In the year 1989 he actively helped found the Citizens‘ Forum in Plzeň. Then he took the initiative to Plzeňský Prazdroj. Later he became part of the city representation and then of the City Council Plzeň. In the years 1992 to 1998 was a member and chairman of the westbohemian section of the Citizen Democratic Alliance. Thanks to his activites under the previous regime he became a recipient of the Governor‘s Plaque of Honour of Plzeň region in the year 2021 thanks to his courageous stances.