Jan Kozlík

* 1946

  • “My father had influenced me most of all by always tuning in Radio Free Europe or a similar station after listening to the regular news on the radio. Then he would tell me how things were in reality, how did the truth differ from what we were told. From the beginning he put me in a position in which – although no one else gave a damn – I would have to argue against it and form an independent opinion. He was also characterized by never participating in elections after 1948. The 1948 elections were the last ones in which he did vote. When he found out that they were apparently rigged, he decided not to go vote ever again. This caused him trouble, no doubt. Not so much from the secret police, as from the people who told him: ‘This is of no use. You are only going to do yourself harm.’ Even some relatives used to tell him that. ‘Look, you have a young boy and he won’t be admitted to university.’ This has proven to be true. When I was ten years old, my mother had died. That was yet another blow, I could not grasp why it had happened. There are things which a child’s soul can’t comprehend. At that moment, our priest took me aside and told me: ‘This has happened because the Lord has special intentions with you. He has a particular path for you.’ I did not understand it at all. Only later did I realize what he had in mind. He wanted me to study theology. My mother asked him on her deathbed to take care of my upbringing. And this really did happen. He took it seriously, gave me special tasks. We have had special discussions. This way he convinced me that my way was to be different from other children’s.”

  • “What we have had before our eyes was a swift retreat from the 1968 standpoints into a fearful environment. We could observe it in our professors. They were oh so courageous in 1968 but soon after changed their tone. They became very introspective, not at all commenting on what was going on. It all culminated in 1971 when on the day of the communist putsch anniversary, for the first time since 1968, the faculty raised the Czechoslovak and the Soviet flag on the building of the theological seminary. All of the students who lived in the seminary said: ‘What demoralization, this really is horrible.’ I then decided to act. I borrowed a stepladder from the janitor and took the flags down. I am still sorry about stories being told about me bringing down the Soviet flag. I brought down both. Not from mere anti-Sovietism. I took down both, claiming that there was no reason to celebrate 25th of February, that it was no holiday of ours. News about the missing flags and about me taking them down had spread instantly. The faculty secretary came to me and started to negotiate the return of the flags. We have had a pseudo-theological debate on whether it was the wall, the building or us who celebrated the anniversary this way. Only in the afternoon when he told me it was a criminal offence of theft, I returned them to him. The secretary asked the janitor to raise them again. She was a simple woman. She told him that she raised them once and that she would not do it again. So the flags were not flying for the whole day. The secret police find out very soon. They initially summoned some other students to testify. Upon return they told me that they were in Bartolomějská street because of the flags. I became really worried because back then one could serve time for a thing like that.”

  • “In this situation, us a spokespersons of Charter 77 were faced with an obligation to write something on the missiles. We drafted a very mild text on us being against Pershing missiles as well as SS 22. Back then, this meant a lot for the secret police. As soon as they had read it on the Voice of America radio, I was arrested. Mrs. Marvanová and Marie Rút were not, if I remember correctly. They were terribly happy. They told me: ‘Mr. Kozlík, we told you that the glass would spill one day. And now you scored an own goal. Now we can easily sentence you for undermining the defensive capacity of the country. You will not be free again sooner than in five years.’ They undressed me and put me into underground jail in Bartolomějská street. I shared a prison cell with some Yugoslav who went crazy because he had withdrawal symptoms. I have had the whole night to meditate over everything. I realized that this was the best thing that could have happened to me. That I would get locked up as a spokesperson, which would not go without the outside world noticing. But, most importantly, that I would get locked up for missiles, which was the topic of all peace movements.”

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„I am eager to see something new, something with a future, before I die.“

Graduation photograph of J. Kozlík - 1968
Graduation photograph of J. Kozlík - 1968
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Jan Kozlík was born on the 4th of January 1946 in Mšeno near Mělník to Miroslava and Jan Kozlík. His childhood was affected by the confrontation between the scientific world approach presented by some of his teachers and the Christian faith of his parents and the Protestant pastor Josef Svoboda. His mother died when he was ten years old. Given his fathers‘ publicly presented opinions (for instance, his absence in elections) Jan Kozlík was only admitted to a vocational school, training to be an electrician. Even though he successfully passed the admission exams in 1964, he was not admitted to Prague‘s Protestant Theological Faculty. He was only accepted in 1968 after graduating from a high school of electrical engineering. In 1971, on the anniversary day of the 1948 communist putsch, he removed the Soviet flag from the theological seminary. The only  good advice of an attorney saved him from arrest. In 1972, he was expelled from the university. He lived in Prague and made a living as an electrician, inspection technician and stoker. He attended theological and philosophical seminars held in private apartments. In 1977, he signed the Charter 77 and throughout 1983 served as its spokesman. Since 1988, he was engaged in the Movement for Civil Liberty. Starting in March 1990 he served on a vetting commission with the federal Ministry of Interior. He co-founded the Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution - later transformed to Security Information Service (BIS). There he had worked until his retirement. He devotes himself to philosophy and theology.