Milan Jiříček

* 1947

  • "My parents didn't know I was running away, you couldn't even tell your parents. On that last day I just came and said goodbye. It was so weird, so sad. Because when I said goodbye to my dad, he was looking at me and didn't know what was going on. So we're sitting in the hotel, in Moscow, around ten to eleven, I say goodbye to my friends and I see my dad walk by. So he sat down and we said goodbye properly. He couldn't believe I was running away. I was lucky enough to invite him to Vienna while I was there."

  • "Everybody must have sensed it because it was all around us. It started the hippie era when young people took to the streets and burned appeal cards when they were drafted. And the images of the war were horrible. So it was easy to join in, especially when you're young. And I was very lucky. That was the lottery for Vietnam and my birthday was drawn, so I got to go. But the lucky thing was that my wife was pregnant at the time, I was new there, so they forgave me, so I didn't have to."

  • "I'll come out of the hotel at about three in the morning. And at four o'clock in the morning there's so much noise! The planes were flying. You turn on the news and you hear, 'We're occupied!' So it's about seven in the morning, I jump on my motorcycle and go to the first barracks in Holesov, saying I'm going to help save the republic. I get to the barracks, and there's a tank every ten metres, pointing at the guys in the barracks. So I knew there was no help here. And that I'd probably move out of here, that they wouldn't move out, that they'd be here for a while. So I was looking for a way to get a passport. That wasn't easy either, because there were these street files [street committees]. Well, just, the street people took care of your life. You needed permission from everybody."

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    Zlín, 27.11.2019

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I knew I‘d move out because soldiers won‘t move out, they stay here for a while.

Milan Jiricek, ca. 1988-89
Milan Jiricek, ca. 1988-89
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Milan Jiříček was born on 24 January 1947 in Zlín. Both of his parents, Marie and Otakar Jiříček, worked in Bat‘a enterprises before his birth. Already when he was studying to be an electrician in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, he was offered to join the Communist Party, but he managed to talk his way out. At the age of eighteen, a year earlier than usual, he joined the army. After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, he decided to emigrate. With the help of the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees, he and his friends made their way to the USA via Vienna. His wife, with whom he has two sons, followed him. They separated in America. Milan Jiříček subsequently lived in many places in the United States, from Alaska to Arizona, Colorado and New Jersey, until he found a home in California. He was lucky to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. While in the US, he made a living as an electrician, a welder‘s maintenance man for General Motors, and a builder of mobile homes. He has lived in the Czech Republic since 2009.