Rudolf Švec

* 1948

  • “I went there out of curiosity, the day was 20 November 1989 I would say, when this public communist party meeting took place. And they were still quite confident. I'm sure it was on the 20 November, in the community centre. It was on Monday, and on 17 November, that was Friday. And there was this young man saying: 'Come on. What are you talking about?' They would criticize them. And they would silence him. As they were still confident at that time. And I wanted to know what was going on, for sure, like everybody else did.”

  • “We applied for a permit as I wanted to see the Soviet Union. We were issued a tour to the Soviet Union. After two weeks, this trade union chief came and said: 'Listen, we had to cancel your tour, as this committed comrade showed up. We had to let him go instead. You will go next year.' Next year I would have applied again. This happened in 1986. So in 1987, I would apply once again. And again, we were issued a tour to the Soviet Union. But I had to carry a red banner in front of people marching on May the 1st celebrations. Not the Soviet flag, just this red banner. After that I went to the Soviet Union and I was glad to go there, as I saw Lenin in the mausoleum. I learned how they had been living there. The Russians are quite pleasant people. And politics, that's another story.”

  • “We were on a hike to Mutěnín. We went to a pub there. We were expecting two more friends to come. We went to meet them at the train station. We went to meet them, and all of a sudden this GAZ car shoved up. And border guards with sub-machine guns and dogs got out of the car. They surrounded us and checked our IDs. We were surprised that those few hours we spent there were enough for some local citizens to report us to the Border Guard which did a raid on us. But they were taking it easy while checking our IDs. They would let us go. We had chosen a place to spend a night there but we couldn't do that. As there was this border guard who kept following us. Back then, I found out that there were good people after all. As there was this old man who would come and let us spend the night in his house. As he had a spare room there. He didn't know who we were. He had no idea, yet he would let us sleep under his roof. That's something I just couldn't forget.”

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    Holýšov, 27.04.2021

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I had been serving with tank brigade

Rudolf Švec in Holýšov, 1963
Rudolf Švec in Holýšov, 1963
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Rudolf Švec was born in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, on 28 February 1948 as the second child of Rudolf and Anna. He grew up in Holýšov, on a farm owned by his grandfather, Jan Hübner, a farmer and a coal merchant. He witnessed his grandfather‘ s farm being nationalized and his family being evicted. In 1966 he completed his training as a coach-builder – tinsmith in SVA Holýšov national enterprise. He co-founded the ‚White Lily‘ (‚Bílá Lilie‘) tramping movement camp. With his friends he had been hiking throughout Western Bohemia. In 1967, he married Anna, and his daughter Michaela was born in the same year. He had his compulsory military service postponed by two years due to medical reasons. In April 1969, he joined the 23. Tank Regiment in Holýšov. After training, he had been serving as a gunner at a T54 tank. In August 1969, with gun and ammunition, he was deployed with an auxiliary unit of the National Security Corps (SNB) in the streets of Staňkov and Holýšov. Authorities had been expecting riots on the first anniversary of the Warsaw pact invasion, yet no protest took place in the end. While firing live ammunition during an exercise in Dobrá Voda near Prášily, he witnessed a tragic accident in which his colleague was involved. After leaving the army in 1971 he returned to the SVA Holýšov production plant. In 1975, his son, Rudolf, was born. In the 1980s he joined the ‚obligatory‘ protests against deployment of Pershing rockets in West Germany. In 1987, he saw mummified Lenin in Moscow. To get a coupon for a co-op holiday in the USSR, he had to carry a red banner in front of people marching on May the 1st celebrations. On 20 November 1989, he attended the public Communist Party meeting in Holýšov. In 1998, he joined the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). He had been elected a local representative in 2002. He participated in the erection of the memorial of the liberators of Holýšov. He was awarded a Polish medal for his maintenance of the Holy Cross Brigade memorial plaque. After retiring in 2009, he kept working for his village. At the beginning of the Covid 19 epidemic in March 2020, he had been evacuated from Zanzibar where he had been spending his holidays. At the time the interview had been taken (2021) he was living in Holýšov.