Roman Vlasák

* 1954

  • “So, I came to the comrades and one of them told me: ‘Well, comrade, this will stay crossed out like this.’ In the Silent night, for example, they crossed out the English version or this beautiful Christmas carol from the Beroun region about Virgin Mary. Or we had Neruda set to music, sung by Honza Kubín as a duet. It really had a system and it took them a lot of time and work. And I told them: ‘Then tell me the reason why.’ And the comrade said: ‘I was told by comrade ecclesiastical secretary that faith and religious elements have been spreading among the youth of our district too much.’ And I said: ‘Please, comrade, we’re not in the fifties anymore.’ She didn’t like that very much but she had a good answer to it, I remember to this day. She said: ‘Well, we aren’t. If we were you would end up very differently.’ She told me just like this. I said: ‘Well, yeah.’ So I left angrily and we started performing the play.”

  • “I remember that very well, coming to Prague. I was chosen because I had been interested in these things back then already, together with a friend – my classmate Péťa Havránek, and we went to Prague together. We had a wreath of course and some eulogies. Even though we were young, I think that we felt that it wasn’t normal for a young man to be burnt to death, that the reasons had to be serious. You can understand that even when you’re fourteen. And we arrived in Prague and the city was like never before. I remember it was drizzling and the weather was all gloomy. I think that there was even some wet snow every now and then. And we went to Karolinum where there’d been a line of people.”

  • “I knew a lot about the 1950s, the lock-ups and what they were capable of. It wasn’t the 1950s anymore but one had it in himself, what they were capable of, so that might have played its role. And I know that on that occasion the chief couldn’t take it anymore because I had been stuck somehow that I wouldn’t testify anymore. He grabbed me by my hair. I can’t say it was torture or something, but he just couldn’t take it and said: ‘You bastard!’ And he shook me like this and said: ‘We know very well what happened with the snails.’ He reminded me of it. Then he yelled at me, he just lost it, and said: ‘What do you think will happen, you stinkers? Just do something and we’ll take our batons and we’ll give you what for.’”

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    Poděbrady, 13.08.2019

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Fanaticism and envy are the worst

Roman Vlasák as a wedding registrar at the municipality (early 1990s)
Roman Vlasák as a wedding registrar at the municipality (early 1990s)
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Roman Vlasák was born September 4, 1954 in Pradubice. His mother used to often express her disapproval of the political realities in Czechoslovakia; in 1968 she was engaged in the Club of Committed Non-Party Members and was unlawfully laid off one year later. Roman’s parents divorced shortly after his birth and he grew up with his mother, brother and grandmother in Přelouč. In August 1968, after the Warsaw Pact Invasion, he distributed information leaflets aimed against the occupation armies together with his friends. They wrote anti-occupation slogans on the pavements in Přelouč on the first anniversary of the occupation in August 1969. Interrogations followed but Roman was acquitted thanks to his young age. Later he had troubles getting accepted into high school and university. Eventually, he graduated from the Faculty of Technology in Gottwaldov (Zlín) and moved to Poděbrady with his wife after completing military service. He became member of a community theatre company in the 1980s. He was engaged in the Civic Forum in Poděbrady during November 1989. In 1990 he was elected deputy mayor of Poděbrady.