Ing. Jan Leníček

* 1945

  • "When you do a new method, you need to have access to information, to separates and publications. At that time, it was a problem to get something like that here. So we wrote. I had these pre-printed cards and it said in English, please do this - and I would write down what article I needed and they would usually send it to me. Suddenly, after a couple of years, it stopped coming. And it turned out that in 1987 or a year later, I don't know exactly, a colleague came to me saying that the StB [State Security] was interested in me, that I should stop corresponding with foreign countries. So I continued to write, but I sent it through a colleague in Teplice, and I received replies through him."

  • "I have memories, but of course it was dealt with in our hygiene department. At that time, laboratories were still under hygiene, not under nuclear research or the environment. So I was in contact with the guys, but they had to sign a confidentiality paper. They weren't allowed to talk about it at all, so the results were sketchy from what they told me. They hinted that there was something, but I don't know more than that because they were really afraid." - "So it was that strict?" - "It was under threat of jail."

  • "I took a beer out of the fridge that I had for a snack. It was Zlatopramen from Ústí nad Labem. There was a huge peak. We found huge supplies of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in that beer. Basically, there was a lot of it in the well that the brewery and the distillery were taking from. Suddenly, there was a problem. I wasn't allowed to go to the pub here in Ústí because everyone would slap me for closing the brewery in Ústí nad Labem and the popular Zlatopramen. And since then nobody has been drinking Zlatopramen because they switched to tap water, and if it's not well water, the beer changes its taste."

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    Ústí nad Labem, 23.03.2024

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    duration: 01:49:04
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - Ústecký kraj
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The regime was afraid that the truth about pollutants in the air would reach the people

Jan Leníček in Rájec, 1985
Jan Leníček in Rájec, 1985
photo: archive of a witness

Jan Leníček was born on 11 April 1945 in Havlíčkův Brod into a family of a teacher and a lawyer as the middle of three children. His parents met during the war in an amateur theatre. Neither of his parents was a member of the Communist Party. After primary school he was not recommended to study at a grammar school. Only because his mother harshly talked with comrades at the district committee was he able to study. For further studies he chose the chemistry college in Pardubice, where his father’s friend was the vice-rector. He finished his studies with the degree of chemical engineer in 1968. He then worked briefly at Spolchemie in Ústí nad Labem. Just after the August occupation of Czechoslovakia, he received a draft order and completed a year of military service in Varnsdorf, North Bohemia. After the war he returned to the laboratories of the Ústí chemistry plant for six years. In 1976 he started working as the head of the organic chemistry laboratory at the Regional Hygiene Station in Ústí nad Labem. Beyond his normal duties, he and his colleagues began to work on research and measurements of various harmful substances in the environment and on the development of measuring instruments. The organic chemistry laboratory of the Ústí “hygiene” was pioneering under his leadership, thanks to its often innovative methods, and cooperated with many of the top workplaces in Czechoslovakia. Since 1991, he has been involved in the international research programme “Teplice”, which for the first time in the history of Czechoslovakia intensively monitored air pollution. He has written dozens of scientific papers on the measurement of chemical substances in various environments. In 2024, the witness lived in Ústí nad Labem.