There’re enemy tanks, I can’t drive through with the ambulance!
Oldřich Kácha was born on the 22nd of April in 1944 in Nymburk. Three years later, his mother married to a former soldier in the Western Allied armies, Stanislav Hnělička, which led to continuos persecution of the family after the Communist coup in 1948. After finishing basic school, Oldřich apprenticed as a car mechanic in Česká Lípa and in 1963, he started to serve in the army. During the two years of compulsory service, he served altogether 31 days in restricted solitary confinement, (i. e. without mattress and with hot meal only every other day), usually for unauthorised leave. After returning from the army, he worked as an electrician in the Pozemní stavby company in Liberec and in 1966, he got employed as an ambulance driver in Frýdlant. Later, he was transferred back to Liberec where he witnessed the Warsaw Pact armies invasion on the 21th August of 1968. With the ambulance, he had to find his way among the tanks to transport the injured to the hospital. In 1970, he got a job as a chauffer in the Elitex company in Liberec where he drove the peak management. Despite his bad dossier, he kept the job until 1980 when he switched for the same job in the Pozemní stavby company, also in Liberec. In 1983, he was investigated for endangering state’s foreign currency balance and spent 28 days in custody. He welcomed the fall of the Communist régime with great enthusiasm, helped to put up posters and drove students around. In 1990, he started his own transport company which he ran until 2004 when he retired. Then he got a camper van and moved to Spain. At the time of recording (2022), he lived in Spain and returned to Czech Republic only for summer.