Prof. Ing., DrSc. Mirko Vaněček

* 1928

  • „S těmi Sověty tam nalítávalo deset letadel, které daroval Sovětský svaz. Byly na nich částečně ještě staré ruské nápisy, částečně už však i nové, francouzské [pauza]… a ty se potom s námi vracely, takže sovětská delegace byla zřejmě také vypovězena. Rusové však podle mého názoru neměli v belgickém Kongu diplomatické zastoupení, zatímco my jo. Dokonce jsme tam měli nějakou diplomatickou legaci. Tedy asi sedm lidí, kteří potom s námi letěli zpět. Před útěkem ze země bylo nutné zlikvidovat celou jejich úřadovnu, takže jsme rozbíjeli sekerou vysílačku, pálili šeky a likvidovali dokumentaci v prádelně, kde hořel oheň.“

  • „V té době byly sňatky sovětských občanů s cizinci zakázány. Slyšeli jsme řadu nešťastných příběhů o tom, jak takoví lidé, kteří spolu měli dítě, spáchali sebevraždu. Když jsem v roce 1953 odjížděl, tak jsme s Galinou napsali žádost o to, abychom se mohli vzít. Nejen, že dostala zamítavou odpověď, ale také jsme spolu jeli do Moskvy, kde jsme vystáli frontu na Prezidiu nejvyššího sovětu. Bylo to v takové prosebně a od rána tam přijímali návštěvy a stížnosti. Galina zaklepala na dveře a vstoupila. Zeptali se jí, o co jde a ona odpověděla. Dále se jí ptali, zda jim psala a ona odpověděla, že ano. Načež jí bylo řečeno, že jí už odpověděli a vyzvali jí, aby uvolnila místo dalšímu. Rozjeli jsme se tedy každý na jinou stranu a slíbili si, že se po deseti letech sejdeme. Na tu dobu jsem byl totiž vázán prací v místě určení, protože jsem na svá studia čerpal státní stipendium. Neuplynul ani rok a v Sovětském svazu ten předpis zrušili. Musel jsem tedy připravit zvací listiny se sedmi razítky různých institucí. Legalizace podpisu, superlegalizace. Také jsem musel podepsat, že jí budu krmit a šatit. Všechno jsem to vyřizoval nejméně měsíc. Pak jsem to tam poslal a trvalo to rok, než jí vyřídili příjezd [pauza]… a takhle jsme začali žít spolu.“

  • „Tatínek se dostavil nejprve do Prahy a domů přijel až s bratrem [pauza]… byl to úplně někdo jiný. Maminka to říkala taky. Jemu bylo v pětačtyřicátém padesát let a byl to téměř stařec. Matka byla o čtyři roky mladší a ta zlomená osobnost, která se vrátila, pro ni určitě muselo být dost velké zklamání [pauza]… měli jsme ho nesmírně rádi, ale ta válečná zkušenost v něm zanechala hluboké stopy. Později ještě onemocněl. Měl Parkinsona. Od padesáti do sedmdesáti už prostě jen dožíval. Nebyl to fyzicky plnohodnotný člověk, ale myslelo mu to pořád. Předválečný a poválečný otec jsou pro mě dvě různé osoby.“

  • “His investigation went through various phases, he was taken from Budějovice to Pankrác, then to Terezín and, I think, to Dresden. From Dresden they sent him back to Budějovice. He spent eight months in solitary confinement. Before the end of the war he and the whole group were stood before a people’s tribunal in Nuremberg, Volksgericht it was called. And some of them, including my father, were on line for the death sentence. By a stroke of luck, through my father’s sister and some Prague solicitors, they managed to secure one solicitor in Dresden, his name was Crussius. I have some of his correspondence, in which he describes my father’s ongoing situation, and he always ended with: ‘Heil Hitler!’ And that solicitor happened to soak up all the money that we’d received for Dad’s project. So we paid about a hundred thousand crowns at the time for Dad’s solicitor. He got Dad out of it, so that he ended up with only seven years in prison instead of the gallows. And it seems that in his defence he made much use of the Czech-German club. When the Germans took over here, state officials, including my father, were forced to take an oath of loyalty. So they were charged with high treason for breaking their oath of loyalty to the German Reich.”

  • “Dad served in this function until 9 May 1941, when he took the bus from Budějovice to Hluboká. The company, for which he built roads, was based in Hluboká. He was on his way there to supervise something. The Gestapo was waiting for him there, they took him to Budějovice. The Gestapo came to inspect our house. I have to explain why that happened. He was a member of the group Loyal We Remain. The group was connected to the [exile] government in London, and Dad also served as a go-between for Budějovice and Prague because he often had dealings in Prague. The resistance group in Prague was headed by Mr Lány, who was Chairman of the Supreme Court, and Mr Bondy. And Dad relayed messages. The group mostly comprised post office and railway employees and former soldiers. That was because when the army was dissolved in 1939, many officers either fled abroad, or were forced to look for some other employment. So there were former officers there.”

  • “I’d say that these illegal activities were undertaking in pretty primitive conditions, in retrospect. Because they would meet up in a restaurant once a week or fortnight, and they’d chat there. But, as it later turned out, the Gestapo had a waiter there, who served their orders.”

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To be honest, that is to speak the truth

portrét dobový.jpg (historic)
Prof. Ing., DrSc. Mirko Vaněček
zdroj: archív pamětníka

Professor Mirko Vaněček was born on 7 September 1928. He comes from a family of admirers of first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, and both he and his brother were brought up to have the same approach. His father Bohumil Vaněček was active in the resistance during World War II. He was a member of the group Věrni zůstaneme (Loyal We Remain), he functioned as a go-between for České Budějovice, where the family lived, and Prague. The group would meet up at a restaurant, but later events proved that the Gestapo knew of the fact and was receiving regular information from one of the waiters. Once a fortnight it would raid the members‘ houses. As a boy, Mirko Vaněček helped his father hide illegal materials under the coal in the cellar. His father was arrested on his way to work on 9 May 1941. Both his sons had time to remove some of his things from his office at home and hide them at the neighbour‘s. The witness‘s father was interned in Pankrác, Terezín, Dresden, and in solitary confinement in České Budějovice. Fortunately, the family managed to secure a capable solicitor, and so Bohumil Vaněček avoided the death sentence proposed by the prosecution and received a mere seven years in prison. He survived a death march, and after the war he came home starved, but alive. Already as a child Mirko Vaněček was interested in geology, especially in fieldwork. For this reason he applied to study at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Charles University in Prague, and he accepted the subsequent offer to go study geology and mineralogy in the Soviet Union, at the Sverdlovsk Mining Institute (now the Ural State Mining University in Yekaterinburg). He returned to Czechoslovakia every summer, and instead of relaxing he worked at the Institute for the Exploration of Mineral Resources, where he functioned as head geologist despite his young age. He visited various mines and assessed where it would be worth it to continue mining and where to stop. Because of this, rumours started to spread that he was an agent of Rudolf Slánský (a leading Communist figure who fell from grace and was then sentenced to death at a show trial in 1952 - trans.), who was tasked with closing down mines. It seems that Mirko Vaněček only escaped arrest due to the intervention of Professor Jaroslav Koutek, who confirmed that it really was correct to close down the mine in question. In the last year of his studies he met his future wife, Galina, a student of the teaching school. They wanted to marry, but that was not possible in the Soviet Union, it was forbidden for Soviets to marry foreigners. Fortunately, the said law was abolished a year later, although it was still in effect in Czechoslovakia. However, the Czechoslovak ban was not so strict. In December 1954 the witness finally managed to obtain the necessary stamps together with a passport for Galina, and the girl moved to Czechoslovakia, where they married a year later. After completing his degree Mirko Vaněček worked at the Central Institute of Geology, and he later helped establish United Geology, which transformed into the Czech Geological Office after the Velvet Revolution. He was employed as head geologist at the Ministry of Fuel and Energetics. For some time he also worked in Moscow as a secretary at the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). During that period he travelled a lot and got to know the prominent figures of Soviet geology. He later lectured at Charles University as a substitute lecturer and then as a professor. He taught mostly practical subjects at the Department of Economic Geology, and he held the office of vice-dean of the department for some time. When the Soviet tanks rumbled into Czechoslovakia in 1968, an international geological congress was just starting in Prague. The congress had to be dissolved. Both he and his wife were intensely impacted by the Soviet invasion. In 1969 Professor Vaněček therefore took the opportunity to take his wife and two sons with him to Baghdad, where an eight-member team of Czech scientists were mapping the geology of Iraq. His work took him to all the continents of the world except South America; he was posted in Congo, he worked in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Australia, and other countries. He became a pensioner in 1991, but he did not stop working. At the time of this interview he held the position of emeritus member of the Czech Geological Survey and he was preparing for a business trip to Georgia and Bulgaria.