Václav Hybler

* 1947

  • “We had to get into the car and as he was driving us towards Prague, he was saying to us: ‘Oh guys, guys, I am so sorry that you haven’t made it…’ Many officers left the army at that time, because they were forcing them to move basically for nothing… for the counter-revolutionary regiment; that was the situation at that time. I thus got to the Ruzyně prison where I was in detention awaiting trial. A week later the investigator called me – I don’t know where the other guys were at that time – and he asked me why we had done it… I thus told him, just as I’m telling you now, but he was reasonable enough, considering the current situation, and he advised me: ‘Don’t say this! That would not do you any good… Rather say that you did it because of your youth and naivety…”

  • “The Soviet army wanted to get into our barracks. They didn’t want to let them inside. One member of the Soviet army knocked at the gate with a cannon muzzle. A Czech officer rode out against them in a tracked armoured vehicle, and it all got messy… they eventually reached some agreement, I don’t know with whom, and we got an order that we had to leave the barracks. They transferred us to Bratislava…”

  • “A friend of mine and I were playing in a small army band. It was a small band, there were about five of us. Two of us played trumpets, one guy played accordion, and another was a contrabass player. He had the idea that since the Soviets arrived here, we could play the lights-out tune on the trumpets every evening as a sign of protest. When we went to do it for the first time, we were scared, because the Soviets had surrounded the barracks from all sides and aimed searchlights at them… but when we played the second and third day, and a week later, they didn’t care anymore.”

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    Źeršice u Mladé Boleslavi, 26.01.2015

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I do not regret anything, I do not regret what I went through

Václav Hybler as a young man
Václav Hybler as a young man
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

  Václav Hybler was born on October 22, 1949 into a family which opposed the communist regime. His father was a son of a tailor and his mother was a daughter of a road-mender. Václav started his basic military service after completing vocational school in 1967. In September 1968 he and other two soldiers decided to escape from Czechoslovakia. They stole a car and set out for the Austrian border, but they were intercepted and Václav then spent several months in pre-trial detention in the prison in Prague-Ruzyně. He was subsequently imprisoned for 22 months in Ostrava-Heřmanice. After his return from prison he worked in a Unified Agricultural Cooperative and later at the State Farm in Katusice. In 1971 he had to do another nine months of military service. He worked as an engine repairman and tractor constructor. Václav Hybler now lives in Žerčice near Mladá Boleslav.