Ivo Valent

* 1964

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    His mother’s detainment in Parliament in August 1968

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    “Mum told us that when she got inside Parliament, the MPs held a chaotic session there for some time. When the soldiers arrived, the situation got much more dramatic. She said she remembered seeing Marie Kabrhelová crying in the toilets because she couldn’t understand how our brothers could do something like that to us. She was a Communist who was convinced of the friendly relations between the Soviet people and us, so she couldn’t understand what was happening. That was the source of her disillusionment. I remember that Mum told me that she also saw an MP tell one of the soldiers there that he could be her son. They had orders to quell the counter-revolution. When they saw what was going on here, I guess it caused them some embarrassment. But they had to fulfil their orders, of course. I myself served in the army for two years, and seeing that I spent my second year right near the borders, in Aš, I can’t imagine stopping someone who wanted to cross the borders. That would be terrible trouble, and I’d get myself in a real stew.”

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    His mother’s troubles after August 1968

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    “After about three days Mum finally got out of Parliament, when the soldiers received orders not to keep them there any longer. She said she was joined in the street by some men who then offered that, if she wanted, they could immediately arrange her emigration to the United States. Of course, I don’t know if it was a form of provocation, if those weren’t perhaps State Security officers, or if they meant it seriously. But what is clear is that Mum had her family here and her own mother, who was hard of hearing and very ill. So she immediately refused. The matter petered out. Her staying here meant that she and my father bore the consequences of their decision not to sign their agreement with the occupation.”

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    Difficult career advancement without CPC membership

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    “It was interesting, I hadn’t counted on something like that until then. But it became clear that in practice, there was the Socialist Work Brigade, which was in control of certain lucrative lines, such as Prague–Bratislava. If I joined the Party and became a member of the Socialist Work Brigade, which would endorse me as a new employee, my advancement would be much faster. I had never thought of anything like that before. I did not such thing, of course. In the end what I did was I switched over to the [Prague] Public Transit Company at the turn of 1988 and 1989.”

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    Praha, 07.04.2017

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I couldn’t be an engine driver because I didn’t join the CPC

Ivo Valent, 2017
Ivo Valent, 2017
zdroj: autoři natáčení
zdroj: autoři natáčení
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Ivo Valent was born on 26 August 1964 in Prague. His mother was a journalist at the Czech Press Agency, his father worked at Czechoslovak Radio. When the Soviet armies occupied Czechoslovakia in August 1968, his mother was one of the people detained by the soldiers inside the Parliament, where she worked as a news reporter. Then his parents refused to sign their agreement with the Soviet occupation and were fired. Already as a child, the witness took a lively interest in everything related to trains. He studied at a secondary technical school of transportation and wished to be an engine driver. He found a job at Masaryk Station in Prague as an electrical fitter. He soon realised that his dream job of engine driver was unattainable unless he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) and was endorsed by the Socialist Work Brigade. He refused that, however, and instead left to work for the Prague Public Transit Company. He started out as a shift leader and then became a tram driver.

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