I have always done as I deemed fit. When they forbade me, I confronted them.
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Josef Hlava was born in Brno on 9 March 1958. His father Karel Hlava, born in 1902, witnessed both world wars. He was injured in WWI. He worked as the head of a train crew. He most likely met Josef’s mother Marie Hlavová, née Punčochářová, at work on the railway; she was a train conductor. The witness had five siblings. His father died tragically in 1976. The witness completed vocational training as a sign painter. He played handball from the 1970s on. Later on, he was a handball coach. He left to serve in the military in 1978. He was stationed at a checkpoint on the Czechoslovak-Austrian border. In 1989, he took part in the Velvet Revolution protests in Brno. When his mother died, he flew to the USA in 2001 to visit his brother Pavel Hlava, and the two witnessed the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center first-hand on 11 September. The witness lived near the Vranov Dam in 2021.
