I studied trains for a year as a conductor and a shunter, and then we rode across the borders in a pile of wood
Download image
Václav Kabourek was born on 14 July 1937 in Staňkov near Domažlice, into the family of Jan and Anežka Kabourek. When he was eight he experienced the liberation of Staňkov by the American army, which had a strong impact on his political opinions, as it did on most of the inhabitants of western Bohemia, who did not buy into the postwar Communist propaganda. In 1952 his father died, leaving just Václav and his mother. The witness trained as a miner and then worked as a lathe operator. In the early 1950s he wrote a satirical poem criticising the founding of agricultural cooperatives, and he also helped the anti-Communist resistance. In 1955 he was sentenced to one year of prison for associating against the state. Upon his release in 1956, he and his friend Václav Hájek began planning a way to escape across the borders. He got a job as a cargo train shunter at the railway station in Pilsen, to familiarise himself with the possibilities of escaping by train. In September 1957 he and his friend crossed into Germany hidden in a wagon full of wood. Václav Kabourek then immigrated to the USA. He settled down in Hollywood, where he tried his hand at various film jobs - most notably as a pilot. He returned to the Czech Republic in 2012.
