"Before that, admittedly, we had a concert. One is there [in the ,,Mill" file], then there were three others that are not listed there. We were not so well monitored, that's their [State Security] sloppy work. But then we said that there was such an archival document, Evžen brought it from Pilsen. Here's a Baroque folk play 'About a crooked chimney', so we'll perform it. The only setting that's bigger than a household was at my mill. So of course I was happy to offer to do it there, not to organise it, I'm not competent to do that, nor am I a musician. We did it at the mill. Because there were more people there, twenty certainly, as stated. So it leaked into their [State Security] circle and it was made a forbidden gathering. Now I found in my archival dosuments, in my mess, an invitation to that concert at the mill. So I hope we will recreate it with another generation, because there are not many of us who experienced it anymore. What they made of normal cultural activity was that a group of intellectuals were not satisfied with the existing culture and had to create their own. Of course. Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque music is heritage and I don't see why it would be a crime to play it or rehearse it. Or is it an anti-state thing? Where are we? It really does look very ridiculous nowadays."
"Even after the war. Dad, of course, started working at Barrandov. Apparently he made a good name for himself there as a former prisoner. He was given the task of carrying out part of the removal. Someone found in the Jizera Mountains... there are the Nýč´s Houses, they were these wooden cottages where the Germans lived. So we went there as the first tour. To the future recreational facility for Barrandov. Of course, families were living in those houses. So I saw them bring their packages, weigh the 20 kilos. They loaded them on a Tatra truck and took them to the railways station, then the Tatra truck came back and took another group. The removal was done in this soft way. My father was somehow managing it, because he spoke both German and Czech, so there was no problem in communication. Then we came to this one cottage - it was clean, the mugs were lined up."
"I led a kind of double life. At home I spoke German with my mother, and out on the street I gradually learned Czech. There was one episode when I acquired a special Czech word. I was always going up the hill where they used to go sledging. Someone would sometimes say to me, 'Please put your feet on the footrest,' so I put them on the footrest and rode. Then I got a little bit older, so I took the sledge from home and went. Of course, I put my feet on the footrest, but there was a fence at the bottom of the hill and I hit it. Of course I broke my nose. Some two guys were giving me a ride. One of them said, "Why do you bother with that German guy?" and the other one said, "Dude, he has a dad in a concentration camp. I asked my mother what it was. My mom said, 'You know it. It's Kacet.´ When they speak German, they say Kacet. She said, 'It's a camp like that.'"
Petr Pešek was born on 26 January 1938, the eldest son of Erhard Pešek and Emma Pešková in Prague. Both parents came from the Sudetenland. His father Erhard Pešek trained as a photographic laboratory technician and worked for Kodak in Prague. Emma Pešek, née Wirknerová, was a housewife. When Petr Pešek was three years old, his father was arrested by the Gestapo for distributing leaflets and sent to a concentration camp. He returned home in 1945. After the war, Petr Pešek trained as a wood modeler in the Smíchov Škoda factory. Later, he finished his eleven-year-school while working in a Prague construction company and then was accepted to architecture school. In order to be able to study it, he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), which he left in 1967. In 1969, he got a job as a conservationist in Český Krumlov, where he and his family moved. During his seven years in office, he became an unwanted person because of his hardline views on monument preservation. In 1976 he left his position as a monuments keeper and was unable to find employment anywhere, from 1977 he worked as a freelance artist. Since his arrival in Český Krumlov, he has been associating with similarly opposition-minded people. From the 1970s onwards, he participated in several unofficial cultural events in Český Krumlov, several of which were organised right at his place at Dobrkovický mlýn. In 1989, he joined the Civic Forum and actively participated in the Velvet Revolution in Český Krumlov. In the 1990s, he was involved in founding the St. Agnes of Bohemia Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Český Krumlov. At the time of recording (2023) he was living with his wife Jana Pešková in Český Krumlov.
