Mgr. Pavel Hekela

* 1954

  • “We joined the Praguers because it started in Prague and we had information from Prague. DAMU students used to go to the theatres to inform us and we also went there. For example, I was at the theater in Šumperk because I was close to it, or we went over the villages and explained why we were striking. We were in agitation centers, where somebody finally agitated, because we were agitating for the revolution.”

  • “If I am not mistaken, Vašek Bahník, Ivana Plíhalová, Miroslav Rataj and myself. But this is no summary, just who I can safely remember. We built a kind of centre in front of the interpretation of the opera, where we had a sort of stage built to get higher, and we had a microphone and a sound system, and we read various statements there. I remember reading a statement while I was standing up, and now I saw a bus coming to the town hall, popping out of it, I think they were militiamen with machine guns and dogs. This is a legendary scenery. This will certainly be remembered by more people. I felt like my heart fell down in my pants and I thought I was dead. However, I did not run anywhere, I read it and they also did nothing. It was a very powerful moment when I was really scared.”

  • “When the flags were flying, I no longer know why it was, whether on the anniversary of the Soviet Union or whatever, so Czechoslovak and then Soviet flag was hanged from our class. We had a Soviet flag, I had my fingers in it too, we took it, rolled it up and tossed it behind the closet. There was a great investigation and trouble, because somebody said there was no Soviet flag at school. The janitor hung her up and suddenly it wasn't there and no one knew where it was. So, I know there was a kind of investigation. I don't remember when it was over.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Olomouc, 13.06.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:35:19
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Avia stood in front of the theater, and when we got out they took a picture of us through the window

Pavel Hekela was born on 3 March 1954 in Přerov. He came into the world as the younger of two children, Ladislav and Jiřina. The family lived in Krapkova Street in Prostejov. Both his parents died in his childhood. After graduating from high school he studied at the Theater Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) in Prague in the field of acting. He then worked in the Oldřich Stibor Theater in Olomouc (today the Moravian Theater) and then in a number of other theater engagements as an actor and later also as a director. He has worked mainly in Olomouc and Šumperk, but has also guested in Prague, Brno, České Budějovice or Hungary in Szeged and Pécs. In 1978 he married Chrisula Kazanzi and together they raised their two children Matthew and Martin. During the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he took part in a theater strike in Olomouc and organized discussion evenings at which experts discussed various topics. After the fall of the Communist regime, he co-owned the Olomouc recording studio Gulliver as a lecturer of moderators and later the director worked in the private radio Pohoda. In 2000–2013 he was the director of the Czech Radio Olomouc and in 2013–2018 he was the director of the Moravian Theater Olomouc.