Mgr. Robert Novák

* 1967

  • "And we actually organized a strike there. So not much was known about it, but it was very instructive again because there were pigs among the doctors and so on. There were decent people as well, of course, as everywhere, in the surgical pavilion, due to its large size, someone died almost every night. They had a refrigerator there for the dead bodies, and we were not allowed to use this refrigerator and we had to carry the corpse in a wheelchair to pathology, across the hospital courtyard. Often, especially over the weekend, there were five to six dead, who had to be transported to pathology no sooner than Monday morning, when the working week officially started. So as we drove five or six dead across the courtyard at seven o'clock in the morning, a lot of patients were already attending examinations in the hospital and they witnessed the processions with the corpses. And we thought how absurd was they had to see this on the way to the hospital. we asked why the refrigerators cannot be used. They replied the cannot. And we decided to refuse to cooperate, and stopped carrying the deceased to the pathology."

  • "First we met in the theatre, and then we took the occupation strike. But we didn't occupy the school, since pedagogical faculty was in multiple buildings throughout the whole city, so we occupied the dormitories- because we all, not only the people staying there, but also people from Hradec, who went for lunch into the dorms, used to gather in there, so it seemed reasonable to occupy it instead of six or seven buildings. We rather did the opposite- we occupied the dorms and sent people in front of the individual buildings, already on Tuesday morning and there they started to explain what is going on, how should the things.... Or that we are going to this strike here, that the strike should start somehow...And again, the classical situation... I don't know how many students from Hradec attended the pedagogical faculty, whether 800, I guess, 600 to 800 people, maybe around 1000, but only 50 active strikers. Other 100 helped if we needed something, and the rest had holidays."

  • We did - we made barrels on the weekends. We just went to nature, so we bought a barrel, somewhere at Orlice or at the coast of Elbe. So we made a fire there and we just made barrels there and played on guitar and so on and we called ourselves Sudparta, and then we found out that someone in the pub brought in and said Sudparta and they turned it into a Sudetendeutsche Partei, so I didn't know what to tell them. 'What is Sudparta?' I'm saying that Sudparta - like we're going to ride those barrels. 'Don't talk, don't lie. You'll get it!' And like this, and only after it came out of them, that it was like the Sudetendeutsche Partei, I was at that first interrogation for perhaps two hours, and they simply said, 'You wanted to emigrate!' I said, 'How about emigrating, where to emigrate?' - 'You wanted to emigrate to Australia.' And like this over time, because of course, they picked up my friends from the various schools and the ones we went there, and then we kind of put it back together - the story, that a guy from that pub, not even from our party, he got into a conflict with the law, so they pinched him to be an informer. And he had nothing to bring, so he sat here with us and said that we were Sudparta and so on. "

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    Hradec Králové, 10.05.2019

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It‘s never so bad that it can‘t get any worse

Robert Novák, 1989, historical photo
Robert Novák, 1989, historical photo
zdroj: Poskytnuto Robertem Novákem

Robert Novák was born on October 9, 1967 in Hradec Králové. The family did not agree with the communist regime, the Voice of America was broadcast at home and the political situation was openly discussed. During primary and secondary school, he got into several minor conflicts over the presentation of his views. He went to the boating club, which, among other things, organized various events of a humorist nature on official anniversaries and, together with several other members, was detained and interrogated by members of the StB for grotesque accusations, apparently fabricated by a diligent informant. Prior to college, he worked as a hospital attendant and co-organized a workplace strike due to the treatment of the bodies of deceased patients. As a second-year student at the Faculty of Education, he was one of the leading organizers of the student strike in Hradec Králové in November and December 1989. He then became a teacher and subsequently director of the J. K. Tyl grammar school in Hradec Králové.