Václav Krajník

* 1941

  • "An armoured vehicle was driving around Boleslav and filming people. I didn't know. They had cameras in their visors, they were driving and shining lights. Because I was a photographer, I figured in my head that they were filming it." - "They were the Czechs filming it, weren´t they?" - "Those were the Russians in a car... in a wheeled car and it had portholes, I don't know if it was amphibious even. They had cameras built into it and they were filming people being everywhere and screaming. We somehow beat the Soviets 2:4, as I recall. That was euphoric. I know that one guy... they had behind the gates... you could see there was a light or heavy machine gun, there were little legs and there was an officer standing there. Štefan Vraňák took a piece of some pavement and at the soldier - because the gate was a little higher and you could see the legs - and the asshole threw the kerb at the legs. But apparently he survived. I remember that incident being there when we won the hockey game."

  • "Because I was a technical and economic worker, I had to go for background checks." - "What year was that?" - "In 1970, 1971 and 1972, it took maybe three years of those hard background checks. The management, the communists and the trade unions were all seated there." - "The management of the heating plant?" - "Yes. The communists were from the all-plant committee, from the company committee, it wasn't just the communists we knew who would eventually be more lenient. They asked why I had climbed the chimney. I said it was because of youthful carelessness, I was twenty years old then, you know..." - "And who blamed you? From the notes you made available to me before the recording, it was the people who had applauded you." - "They were there, and they were the ones who checked on me afterwards. The chairman of the trade unions, the chairman of the Communist Party, and they reprimanded me. It got to the point where one day I got angry and said, 'Hey, you sent me when I used to go to that school in Prague...' I mentioned that they had offered me a plan for a whistle, that we could blow the whistle and have a high-pressure whistle that could be heard far and wide... Then it was at a time when it wasn't urgent any more. And that's what I said, and from then on this gentleman who was in charge of the power company said, 'Comrades, I think Comrade Krajník has already told us everything,' and he became worried."

  • "I had climbed that chimney once before, I knew what was waiting for me. It's physically demanding, and it's also demanding because you are afraid and you hold on to the ranks on the ladder, so then your hands hurt the most." - "How high was the chimney?" - "It was the old hundred-metre chimney. When we climbed up and started fixing it, a helicopter came and circled the chimney. And we were really scared because there's nowhere to hide." - "And that was a Soviet helicopter?" - "Yes, Soviet, it was the Russians. When we came down, we were glad to be alive. About twice I had bad dreams about being chased by a helicopter up the chimney. That was the only really nasty thing."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Mladá Boleslav, 02.02.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:15:16
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

He put up a black flag during the Soviet invasion. Applause was replaced by background checks

Václav Krajník in 1976
Václav Krajník in 1976
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Václav Krajník was born on 28 July 1941 in Stránka near Mšeno. The communists took away his father‘s gerocery shop and the family had to move from Krpy to Mladá Boleslav. After that, the witness had a problem to be admitted to a secondary school due to cadre reasons, first he went to an apprenticeship in Krnov and then he was allowed to graduate from the secondary industrial school in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. To serve his military service, he joined the Military Construction Unit, formerly the Auxiliary Technical Corps. He worked in the AZNP automobile factory in Mladá Boleslav, where he initially participated in the establishment of a heating plant for production. He completed his studies at the University of Chemical Technology. During the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, he and a colleague put up a black flag on the chimney of the heating plant. Later he had to explain this to the background checks committees. However, unlike his colleague, he was able to stay at work, later working with the dissident and evangelical pastor Alfréd Kocáb, with whom he became friends. In 2023, he was living in Bradlec in the Mladá Boleslav region. We were able to record his story thanks to support from the ŠKODA AUTO Foundation.