Václav Mařík

* 1942

  • "That was terrible. It was just an ambush. In the morning, suddenly there were foreign soldiers everywhere. And the most interesting thing is that most of them had no idea that they were in a foreign country. They were called up for a military exercise and suddenly they were going somewhere, they were going and suddenly they were somewhere and they saw that there were no inscriptions in the alphabet. They were in Bohemia and Slovakia."

  • "I almost paid badly for one experiment. I have never harmed students, nothing has happened to anyone during my work, during my entire existence. Just me... it was in Munich, it was a lesson - reactive drive. Well, I have to demonstrate jet propulsion. Today you can buy a racket wherever you want; back then this was impossible. Well, I simply made a kind of explosive mixture according to the recipe, I put it in a tin tube on a cart and said: 'When I light it, it should go off, but I have to test it first.' So I tried it in a corridor in Mnichovice. I said, 'Well, if it happens to bang, I'll wait for the big break ringing.' And I did. There was a crazy shot. The tube broke, I found the fragments next to it. The director came - so he ran - and he was saying something to me. I didn't hear him. That was deafening. I heard a high tone whistle. That was terrible. To this day, when I meet the students of that time, who are already retired today, so remember the explosion in the corridor."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Mukařov, 22.04.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:31:28
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Today, the security is so exaggerated that I probably wouldn‘t succeed

Václav Mařík in early childhood
Václav Mařík in early childhood
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Václav Mařík was born on January 2, 1942 in a Prague maternity hospital on the island of Štvanice. He spent part of his childhood in Mukařov; then Václav‘s family moved to an apartment in Vinohrady. As a child he went to Sokol, in 1948 he took part in the XI. All-Sokol gathering in Prague. Subsequently, he started attending Disman‘s radio children‘s ensemble, where he met Václav Postránecký (translator´s note: famous Czech actor), for example. At the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, he graduated with a triple approval - physics, chemistry and technical works. During his studies, he worked as a technician in Petr Janda‘s band, then taught at a primary school. He worked as a teacher until his retirement in 2004. In 2022, Václav Mařík lived in Mukařov.