In the spring of 1968, half o the the general staff walked around pale. After August 21, the other half walked pale.
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Petr Gruša was born on 5 December 1946 in Prague to Libuše and Oldřich Gruša. His cousin on his father’s side was dissident and post-Soviet politician and diplomat Jiří Gruša. He spent his childhood near the Emmaus Monastery in Prague’s New Town. In 1961, he entered the secondary general education school (similar to today’s gymnasium) in Botičská Street in Prague. He did not finish his studies and started working at the national company Kancelářské stroje. He did not graduate until he was employed. In 1966 he enlisted in the guard unit of the engineer unit in Jánská near Česká Kamenice, where he served for half a year. He spent the rest of his military service at the General Staff of the Czechoslovak People’s Army, where he also lived through the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops. In 1971/1972 he co-founded the amateur theatre group Lampa. In 1972, he copied six hundred copies of a book with religious themes, Principled People, at work, for which he was interrogated by State Security (StB) two years later. In the end, he got off scot-free, but he could no longer work in the reprographics department. In 2023 he was living in Prague.
