I was among the labourers of Charter 77
Download image
Ladislav Harant was born on February 28, 1965 in Sušice into a working-class family as the youngest of four sons. In his childhood, he was very involved in sports, mainly football, ice hockey and table tennis. He then played football competitively, at the district and regional level. In 1980, he finished elementary school in Sušice and started an apprenticeship as a construction locksmith in Pilsen. When Leonid Brezhnev died in November 1982, he loudly and indiscriminately condemned the screening of the film weekly at the Sušice cinema. He was subsequently arrested by State Security and taken to the Pilsen-Bory prison for questioning, where he faced physical violence. In April 1983, as a juvenile, he was sentenced to six months for defaming the socialist state system and its representatives. In 1984, he entered military service as a married man. Ladislav had a hard time finding a job after the military service. He eventually started working in a boiler room as a stoker. In 1986, he co-founded the local cell of the Society of Friends of the USA (SPUSA) in Sušice, a year later he signed Charter 77. He collected signatures for other anti-regime declarations. Due to the preparations for the independent assembly on the anniversary of October 28, 1989 in Sušice, together with another Chartist Petr Hrach, he was arrested by State Security and detained for 48 hours in the Vykmanov prison in Ostrov nad Ohří. A few weeks later, he became one of the faces of the Velvet revolution in Sušice. A few years ago, he received a memorial decree from the minister and a badge of a participant in the revolt and resistance against communism. Ladislav Harant also lived in this city at the time of filming the interview (2021), he worked as a baker at Pekařství Rendl in Sušice.
