Josef Maraczi

* 1955

  • "The dissent was the best chance to find out that the John Lennon Wall existed. Whenever someone came to Prague for a visit, they would often go to the wall before going for a beer. As far as I'm concerned, it all started in 1984, I started by cutting out stencils and then applying them on the wall, which at that time was already a poster area, because in 1971, when the XVI Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was held [in 1981], they painted the wall some kind of nasty colour, green. Someone wrote on it: Komu se nelení, tomu se zelení (Literally: He who is not lazy gets a plenty of green crop). So from that year 1984, I started making stencils. Not right at the place, of course, where the original tombstone was, but there was something, usually candle burning, or they wouldn't let us near it. My piece was from the Čertovka Canal Bridge, up to the area in front of Werich's villa. Because the stencils were almost useless after several uses. So then I started making them from sololite, for about two years. One of the paintings was huge, it was a larger-than-life size Lennon, it had this peace band. Somebody always had to carry it for me, because I wore a white American flag cap, so I was visible from a distance. And it ended up that I started doing it on the blinds, I could just roll them up, and it was comfortable."

  • "I used to go to the Lipnice Folk Festival, usually by hitchhiking, I would make a sign for myself, and I had a guest tag ready, so I could enter the amphitheater any way I liked . Unfortunately, Pepa Nos was sued for some tax evasion, maybe two hundred crowns, for doing a concert and not paying the tax. He had been on trial by the commies since maybe 1981, and I got to know him and made those little leaflets that Pepa Nos would be sued. And at Lipnice, when it was getting dark, I told the girls that they were ten or more years younger so they should get in line for a beer, and they left their backpacks and other things with me. Suddenly about five people surrounded me and took out their badges. I said I wasn't a badge collector. They told me I was under arrest, so they arrested me, and to top it off we met Monica, the one who was with me with the stroller on Kampa, who was a little drunk." - "What Monica, what was her last name?" - "Šťastná. I was walking alone and they were walking around me in a circle and she started hugging me. I said, you're second, just look around. And she said she didn't give a shit about them. But they give a shit about me, they want me so bad. She was so angry, she knew they were State Security from Hradec Kralove, so she came with us too. She saw that they took me to the Local National Committee. She ran to the amphitheater and called some boys, some long-haired guys, and they were sitting on a well chanting, 'Let Pepin go!'"

  • "I was helped by people who were not registered. I liked the college kids the best because they wouldn't drink, as they couldn't afford it, and they were afraid that if they got caught with me they could get expelled from school. They were dutiful, they were just amazing. Often I didn't even know them, they didn't even have to introduce themselves, my friend made sure they were trustworthy, and they would be on guard. After the work was done, we shook hands, and that was it.”

  • "The draft was just crazy. And there were tin bins everywhere, and the boys didn't want to enlist, they wanted to pretend to be sick, so they asked me to break their fingers. They'd put them in vinegar for the night, we'd get drunk the next day, and after that, in the evening it was breaking time. Those were tin bins. One of the boys was like... I won't say his name. 'That's not enough!' So I went harder, and after that, his three fingers were crippled for good. I broke them quite badly. I was like, I'm gonna smash him really hard. Maybe I would even stomp on the lid. But he didn't have to enlist."

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He would paint John Lennon on a wall. And he would break boys‘ fingers deliberately to keep them out of the army

Josef Maraczi in the late 1980s
Josef Maraczi in the late 1980s
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Josef Maraczi was born on 13 June 1955 in Kladno. His mother was from Slovakia, and his father from Hungary. His father worked as a circus performer and traveled with the Berousek circus. He grew up in Western Bohemia, in Stříbro, in a troubled family, his parents left him several times in an orphanage or in a sanatorium . He was trained as a painter - decorator and from his childhood he liked painting and fine arts. From 1980 he lived in Prague, where he established close connections with the dissident movement. He created protest banners, T-shirts and other items for several independent peace movements, which were connected to samizdat publishing and his artistic activities. He created stencils of John Lennon and used them to paint on walls in Prague‘s Kampa, never being caught. He also took part in the regular gatherings at the John Lennon Wall, which gradually turned into an anti-government demonstrations suppressed by the security forces and the police. He collaborated on a number of samizdat magazines such as Vokno and JazzStop, he printed declarations for several independent peace associations and created several punk magazines such as 10 Years Flexidisc and Attack. After 1989, he became a member of a screening committee that assessed the involvement of members of the security forces in human rights violations. He made his living as an editor in several post-revolution media and devoted himself to his art. At the time of the interview he was living in Prague (June 2022).