Jindřich Suchánek

* 1954

  • “We had a lovely stay. The Vatican organizers of the pilgrimage treated us like an officially accredited samizdat TV from Czechoslovakia. Thus, we had a higher status than the Italian TVs or BBC. They gave us the closest spot to the Pope. We were really ordinary, snacks poking out of our pockets, people were staring at us there. We were tourists from the socialist Czechoslovakia, we looked terrible. We filmed the pilgrimage and later made the Song about a great pilgrimage out of it. We did the aftershooting in Assisi, because we made the connection between Agnes of Bohemia and Claire of Assisi – they used to exchang letters and so the movie is based on those letters. It’s not a classic documentary, it has an artistic look to it. So, the actor Marie Pištěková reads the letter that Claire had written to Agnes and we have the artistic shots from Assisi. That’s how it’s made. Then of course the canonization, mass at St Clement, St Paul beyond the city walls, some testimonies of witnesses. So, we put all that together. Part of it was an audience with the Pope John Paul II in the hall where Tomáš Havlík had said for the first time that things had been looking up and that when Agnes of Bohemia was canonized, freedom would come to the Czech lands. We have all of that captured, even the meeting of cardinal Tomášek and the Holy Father.”

  • “I spent three days there during the Palach Week, that was very dramatic. We lived at Alenka Šenkyříková and her husband Láďa’s house in Jircháře. We went to see it.“ – “That was in 1989?” – “Yes. In January, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Jan Palach’s death. So, people gather by the horse at Wenceslas Square and there were about five or ten thousand people. The crowds were coming. The policemen made the mistake of storming into us. The crowds were moving, there were water cannons and whistling, catcalling. It was like a public demonstration. Arrests, beatings, they used batons there. We had a good view because we had been standing somewhere on the corner of Jindřišská street and Vodičkova street, that’s why we saw the crowds of policemen. Everyone saw it, so they moved elsewhere. So, the policemen moved elsewhere. And again, and again. They arrested many people there, of course. It lasted around two or three hours; it had started at 5 p.m. We came back the next day and there were twice as many people there.”

  • “Cardinal Tomášek acted honestly. We visited him thanks to Eliška Kovalová who had lived in the same village. She was the only one to receive communion exactly from him. So, he had known her from young age. Once a year she used to visit him – her spiritual father – and always took us with her. Three or four of us went with her to Prague by train in 1986, 1987. We informed him of the situation of the underground church in the Olomouc region. He really liked to listen to that. He always turned on his transistor radio and played Helena Vondráčková or Michal David very loud. He tuned it on purpose. He played it really loud and said: ‘So that those listening to us can at least have a good time.’ And then we talked. And every time he talked about the Christ, he turned the radio down and loudly said: ‘Turn to Christ!’ And turned it on again. The highest authority of the Church turned on radio so that the State Security wouldn’t hear us. These things really shape a person.”

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    Olomouc, 12.04.2019

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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The times when the stupid ruled over the intelligentsia

Jindřich Suchánek na dobové fotografii
Jindřich Suchánek na dobové fotografii
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Jindřich Suchánek was born April 1, 1954 in Brno. His father, a professional soldier, moved to Olomouc with his family but was then dismissed from the army during a purge. Jindřich became interested in politics after the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia. The nonsensical Normalization restrictions were hard on him during his studies at the gymnasium in Šternberk and he was repeatedly not accepted to university after graduation. He experienced cruel hazing during his obligatory military service. He got married in Olomouc, converted to Christianity and joined the faithful community. He attended the secret theology seminars with Josef Zvěřina. He also coordinated the publishing and distribution of religious samizdat literature and took part in activities supporting the unjustly prosecuted people. After the 1985 National Pilgrimage to Velehrad, Jindřich and his brother Vladimír founded a samizdat film studio Velehrad. They secretly made and distributed religious movies and even went to Rome to shoot the canonization of Agnes of Bohemia. In the late 1980s he used to go to Prague for the demonstrations that were often violently suppressed. He organized demonstrations in Olomouc following November 17, 1989 and actively participated in the Civic Forum. In the 1990s he restored and led the Archdiocesan Caritas Olomouc, founded regional charities, organized many projects and first aid during humanitarian crises. He has been an editor in the TV Noe since 2006, preparing a program about nature and the space.