Ing. Václav Andres

* 1943

  • “It was true that I had friends among thé members of the Communist Party. But it was their decision. Again, in respect of understanding each other, I have never seen much of a difference between us." - "Were those real believing friends or were they forced to join the communist party or for another reason?" - "Well everyone joined the party probably because he it was appropriate or necessary, or thinking of being better off. But when I was a worker, there were just guys who were also normal workers and they were in the party. And I always asked myself: Why? Why are you there? In addition, some of them were militiamen. So I said: John, why are you doing this? And he said: If I don't do it, somebody else will do.” - “Has it ever been offered to you?” - “No, I was always the one… Someone from the workshop came to me asking, If I wouldn't want to join the party. And I said, even if I wanted you wouldn't take me anyway. So he said, he would ask. And that was it.” - “And he actually asked?” - “Well, he came to tell me: hey, that's not possible…”

  • “Politicians - why are they politicians? For me it is a useless sucker. Why are they politicians? When they do things that someone will show them how to do it. Why don't lawyers do this? Let only lawyers sit there in law-making and take care of the legal interpretation of the law as it should look to be right and not to be challenged. We have problems with the collectors that a lot of people have collected money on it, but who made the laws? "-" Do you think a politician should be a philosopher?" - "Well, they should have philosophical education at least. What vision to set? The capitalism dies in consumption as it is now; it will run out of supplies of both labor and material. And all the different religions, that's another kind or terror. So these are the things I am not able to reconcile with. All religions are the cause of all the wars that have ever existed. Again - power struggle, nothing else. We are looking for the foundations of Christian-Jewish traditions, but for God's sake, why deal with fairy tales? After all, it is at the level of young children. They could build their power on fairy tales, they could, when people had no knowledge, they did not have any education. So, as a religion, I see all the churches as the greatest decline that could greatly affect us. ”- “That is real strong.” - “What is strong about it? Do you believe in someone?”

  • “If I saw any evidence of what he had signed, I would take it as it is. But so far I have no evidence that he is not a StB officer. And this is what I call a huge propaganda that works at the moment. And undemocratic.” - “And if you could see the document?” - “Well, now it's about being authentic, or not… You know how it went. No one knows what is real. But again, the knowledge of who worked in those state security control spheres simply had to be somewhere. But they're shredding, I don't believe it." - "They say he had the code name Bures." - "That's nice, but anyone could write that. Any man who would like to recruit people to cooperate in state security could write to him."

  • “In the year 1968 I was still a laborer at rolling mill. I lived through it quite well, that I was somewhat interesting, but my dad said to me: Look ... The first thing was that there was nobody waiting for socialism to change into capitalism. In short, it was not even in the year 1989. You want it to turn into a capitalist society, so that even in the 1990s no one imagined that it would go so smoothly. And in 1968, there were conscious people who could target the attack on capitalism. The second thing was the repression, which was so strong, and without it the representatives did not decide that it was otherwise. In short, it was not possible. At the time, I was behaving so I could get through and we didn't cause any big problems in the family. We had quite a lot of hope, that is true. That when the tanks arrived it was unimaginable - I wasn't going to wait it would happen from inside and my dad told me: don't even think it works out. I did not know what to believe, but he told me: do not think it will happen."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Ústí nad Orlicí, 11.11.2018

    (audio)
    duration: 02:19:27
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Back in the 1990s nobody imagined that changing into a capitalist society was never would go so smoothly.

Graduation picture of Vaclav Andres, in 1961
Graduation picture of Vaclav Andres, in 1961

Václav Andres was born on 26 November 1943 in Ústí nad Orlicí in the family of Václav Andres, a watchmaker, goldsmith and optician. As a small trader after 1948, he refused to submit to communist power and did not transfer his business under the then cooperatives. As a result, he was imprisoned for two and a half years. This story was imprinted on the witness profile and he got to high school and university only thanks to lucky coincidence. In 1961 he passed his school-leaving examination at the Secondary Technical School in Chrudim and was given a placement in the national construction company in Ústí nad Orlicí, where he started working. In 1962 he joined the army services, during which he married. This marriage gave him three children. His last son was born in 1992. After that he worked at a rolling mill. In 1976 he started to study at the Technical University of Ostrava, which he successfully finished. Between 1985 and 1989 he graduated from the Czech Technical University in Prague. In 1990 he filed for the audition of the director of SIGMA Česká Třebová. He won the competition and worked there until 1993, when the company was privatized. In 1995 he went to work in Prague to the daughter company of a consolidation bank, where he was for two years. He then went to the Teplice printing house and to the Detona plant in Slavičín, where he ended in 1999 and moved on to the private sector, where he worked until 2005, when he retired.