Ing. Jan Kašpařík

photo: Witness´s archive
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Jan Kašpařík was born on 22 December 1936 in Blažovice into a traditional Catholic family to parents MariE and Jan Kašpařík. The family spent the end of the war in the cellar, where the father had separated one part with a wall and had hidden food there. In the near village of Holubice, a bomb fell on his mother’s parents’ house during an air raid, killing his grandmother. Jan witnessed the arrival of Soviet soldiers in 1945, their inappropriate behaviour and later the expulsion of the German inhabitants, who were accompanied by young gunmen. His father had a blacksmith shop in their house and after 1948 he was forced to join a cooperative farm. After graduating from secondary school in 1956, Jan graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Brno University of Technology. He worked as a technologist in the engineering industry (Drukov) and for several years as a technical teacher at an evening secondary technical school. During the loosened political situation in the 1960s he worked with various architects on major projects all over the country. He personally participated in the 1969 demonstration in Brno on the one-year anniversary of the occupation, the demonstration was violently suppressed. During the period of normalization, he had great difficulty finding employment and was also removed from his post at local national committee where he represented the Czechoslovak People’s Party. He refused to sign a document claiming his belief in Marxism-Leninism principles. In 1969 he married Marta, née Kuklínková. They had three children, daughter Jana (1969), son Vít (1970) and Pavel (1975). When he worked as a maintenance worker in the local cooperative farm, because he could not find a suitable job, he was called in for questioning by State Security officers. In the Security Forces Archives a file has been preserved where he is listed as a person under investigation. He took advantage of his earlier contacts and started working at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Brno University of Technology, first as a technician and later on a higher qualification post, but with the same salary. He actively participated in the events of the 1989 revolution, he was involved in the Civic Forum and was elected deputy mayor of Blažovice for the Czechoslovak People’s Party. All his life he played sports, organized ski courses, played various musical instruments and devoted himself to making of brass instruments and unique measuring devices. He founded a local brass band, the Tibia Music Group, and to this day (2022) he lives in Blažovice and is dedicated to research and production of unusual musical instruments.