Ladislav Harant

* 1965

  • "Then we were arranging the laying of flowers [at the statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk] here in Sušice on October 28, 1989, and they took us away. They arrested me straight from work and then we went to get Petr [Hrach], he was somewhere in a restaurant. We went to Bory and Anton and I stopped in Klatovy before that, where they loaded the rest of those uncomfortable people. And we went to Pilsen. But there they told us that they wouldn't 'accommodate' us, that they were full. That's how they transported us as criminals to Ostrov nad Ohří.'

  • "When I signed the Charter in 1987, within a fortnight it was all sent to the parliament, to Husák, to everyone. When someone signed it, all the authorities knew immediately. After a week or a fortnight, I was summoned to Klatovy to passports and visas. I thought to myself: 'Damn, what's going on, I asked for a passport and it was refused...' And they told me there: 'There are two gentlemen waiting for you there.' They immediately took me to explain why I signed the Charter. And I was also offered cooperation, or that I could move out if I wanted. Of course, this clearing event was much earlier, but even at that time they simply knew that the people who signed it, so that some of them wanted to be picked up probably in order to be able to travel. [Another option was that] they would make people's lives hell. Of course, cooperation was out of the question, and either was moving out, because if I don't see Svatobor here in Sušice, I get nervous..."

  • "In November 1982, when Leonid Brezhnev, the mass murderer, died, I gave a speech here in the local cinema to the weekly newspaper about his life and work. I spoke a few sentences there, after which I was detained by the state police after about a day or two and taken to the Pilsen-Bory prison. I was detained there for some time. The good cops and the bad cops played on me. About four took turns there. Then one of these bad guys came, which I didn't know, and I answered some question to him: 'That cop...' and I got slapped. Then I resisted and I was punched so much that my tooth was knocked out. Well, so I pleaded guilty and in early April of 1983 I had my trial. There, as a juvenile, I received six months with probation for eighteen months under section one hundred and four of the Criminal Code for defaming the socialist state system and its representatives. I slandered both Brezhnev and Husák there, because in that weekly newspaper it happened that Husák welcomed this criminal at the airport, they started kissing. And I said: 'Here they are, they're pansies, they should go to hell!'"

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Sušice, 06.05.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:04:12
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I was among the labourers of Charter 77

young Ladislav Harant
young Ladislav Harant
zdroj: archive of the witness

Ladislav Harant was born on February 28, 1965 in Sušice into a working-class family as the youngest of four sons. In his childhood, he was very involved in sports, mainly football, ice hockey and table tennis. He then played football competitively, at the district and regional level. In 1980, he finished elementary school in Sušice and started an apprenticeship as a construction locksmith in Pilsen. When Leonid Brezhnev died in November 1982, he loudly and indiscriminately condemned the screening of the film weekly at the Sušice cinema. He was subsequently arrested by State Security and taken to the Pilsen-Bory prison for questioning, where he faced physical violence. In April 1983, as a juvenile, he was sentenced to six months for defaming the socialist state system and its representatives. In 1984, he entered military service as a married man. Ladislav had a hard time finding a job after the military service. He eventually started working in a boiler room as a stoker. In 1986, he co-founded the local cell of the Society of Friends of the USA (SPUSA) in Sušice, a year later he signed Charter 77. He collected signatures for other anti-regime declarations. Due to the preparations for the independent assembly on the anniversary of October 28, 1989 in Sušice, together with another Chartist Petr Hrach, he was arrested by State Security and detained for 48 hours in the Vykmanov prison in Ostrov nad Ohří. A few weeks later, he became one of the faces of the Velvet revolution in Sušice. A few years ago, he received a memorial decree from the minister and a badge of a participant in the revolt and resistance against communism. Ladislav Harant also lived in this city at the time of filming the interview (2021), he worked as a baker at Pekařství Rendl in Sušice.