Josef Hlavatý

* 1964

  • "In the end, I was happy I did my vocational training but I aimed beyond just being a mechanic. I really wanted to become a designer. I painted cars, constructed models but nobody cared. At that time they had been producing the same type of Škoda car for two decades. They just adjusted the tins a bit but the motor was still placed in the back and nobody cared. I got my training in Liaz factory, and so I designed a modern booth for their truck. I constructed models and sent them to exhibitions. I kept winning prizes but that was it. Today, if a young person had such talent, he may be noted and make a career. Back then, no. Liaz bought those models from me, had them displayed but that was it. They knew exactly who were my parents, that I hadn't joined either Pionýr or Svazarm. They knew exactly who I was."

  • "I thought - damn, I'm flying the wrong way! I could see dawn on my right hand side but it was supposed to be at my back. I didn't know where I was but suddenly could see a light in the darkness. I flew there, slowing down. I flew low, a couple meters above the trees. As I got closer, it turned out it was a guard tower! Two soldiers were standing up there, they could see me and I could see them. We were just a few meters apart. They turned the spotlight my way, began screaming, the siren went off and soldiers started running out of their barracks. It was heavy. But alright - I pulled left to the darkness. The engine didn't have much power and so I flew just above the trees. This may have saved me. They didn't shoot my way and lost me in the darkness. But they knew about me already. Some fifteen minutes later I could see a series of lights. I thought it would be a border crossing. But it was already an Austrian railway station. Behind it there was a village. I could see huge Marlboro cigarettes posters and black-and-white Austrian signposts. I really made it to Austria."

  • "The air was calm. Just after midnight we constructed the hang-glider and as soon as there was dawn - at around 2:30 - we pushed it to the road. I fastened my belt, took my stuff, my small boy - all was prepared. Dad fastened us up, turned the propeller and I took off. It was dramatic."

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    Praha , 11.03.2017

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Hold on, we’re flying to meet mummy!

1988 Josef Hlavaty with his son David in Austria
1988 Josef Hlavaty with his son David in Austria
photo: archiv pamětníka

Josef Hlavatý was born on 6 April 1964 in Jablonec nad Nisou as the only child to a blue-collar family with a “burgeois” past. He hadn’t joined either Pionýr or Svazarm and his father, a truck driver, listened to Voice of America. Ever since childhood he had great interest in motorbikes and cars. He put his technical skills and ideas to practice with support of his father and to the police’s discontent by designing his own motorbikes based on what he saw in Western magazines. His models were received with acclaim at exhibitions and contests, and he wanted to become a designer. However, due to his political stance, he wasn’t even admitted to become a car mechanic. Placing a US flag on the tank of a motorbike put him at risk of prosecution for promotion of capitalism. In 1987 he and his father built a hang-glider, and he was about to become an agricultural pilot. After the secret police intervened and made sure he wouldn’t get the job he and his wife decided to leave the country. His wife with their year-old son fled from a tour to Yugoslavia but Josef and his three-year-old David weren’t allowed to join them. He therefore undertook a dramatic and risky hang-glider cross-border flight to Austria. In summer 1989 his parents joined him there, escaping via Hungary. Josef Hlavatý only returned to Czech Republic in late-1990s following a divorce. To this day he commutes to Austria for work.