Ing. Petr Tyráček

* 1946

  • “There was a commotion at the Czech side in Mikulov, at the Czech customs, at the passport check, because our whole family went which was completely unusual. So, they pulled me and my wife into customs, I found out after that they did not have time to check anyone else at all, they pulled me, my wife and the bags we had, the stuff we had in them. Well, they rummaged them, they started by rummaging through the bags, even the lining that was there, all of it. Eva was terrified, I moreover smuggled in an extra hundred marks, more than we were given, I was able to get them at that time. And she knew that I was smuggling the 100 marks, and she thought that is... And so we stood there in our underwear and this search went on for at least half an hour. Then we went back to the bus, and the kids had stayed on the bus, and then they said that they had searched the kids on the bus, and they almost tore the seats that we were sitting on. And they found it terribly strange that our whole family was going. And they tried to think of something to send us back."

  • “Every bridge, there was a booth on one side and on the other side of the bridge, and a man with a rifle and a bayonet or a machine gun stood there. Every bridge was guarded. There were broken Hanomags along the tracks from the Second World War. Only women in red vest worked on the tracks, there was no man. When I… of course we looked out of the window, you know, and so I saw, we went through valleys and I saw one village, second village, now there were straw roofs and thatched roofs and so on. And only two cottages in those villages had tin roof that was the local soviet and a church, these were the only ones with tin roofs. What I completely bought was that there was a cottage nicely placed on a hillside and it had some straw or thatched roof and you could see through the roof, you saw through the hillside and there were holes, and on the roof, there was a TV antenna.”

  • “Every company, maybe only those bigger, had a special department. And we got it, those who went abroad always got a paper and then we had to make a report. We had to write what happened there, what were we negotiating about and so on, it was compulsory. And the special department, a man from the State Security was visiting it and he controlled it.” – “How did the contacts with State Security take place?” – “It took place through the special department, yes, so we had to do this. I was surprised because of it, when I went to the Soviet Union for the first time in 1975, I was in Vilnius in Lithuania, it was my first meeting. And I did not even have a slight idea. This all – I was there with my boss, technical deputy who prepared the trip and the administration concerning it, and when we arrived, he called me and said: ‘Here you have these papers and you have to write down all of this.’ And I said: ‘Why if I had already made a record? We made all records in Russian so why should we do it…’ – ‘Well, that is compulsory, and everything has to be written down not only those things that you discussed there.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Jihlava, 22.07.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:52:47
  • 2

    Jihlava, 07.09.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:43:06
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Young electrotechnician

Petr Tyráček in band Dynamic, New Year's Eve ROH, 1974
Petr Tyráček in band Dynamic, New Year's Eve ROH, 1974
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Petr Tyráček was born on 6 June 1946 in Jihlava. He studied at the electrotechnical industrial school and later ČVUT. During his studies he started to play concerts with his big beat band. At the same time, he worked as a musician at the Horácké divadlo, where he played intermittently for fifty years. After the compulsory military service, he started to work in Tesla Jihlava where he had worked in different managerial positions until he retired. In connection with his business trips abroad he had to submit reports to the State Security. In 1980s, the State Security kept him as a secret collaborator in connection with his work on the preparation of special standards for the military programme. He studied at a university in combined mode and gained few titles. In 1988 he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, but left it right after the Velvet Revolution. In the new era, he successfully took Tesla through privatization and achieved entrepreneurial success and prosperity. After retirement, he taught at the College of Polytechnics in Jihlava. In 2021, he lived in Kostelec near Jihlava.