I was really looking forward to getting my parents out of jail
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Karel Petrlík was born on 3 November 1949 in České Budějovice as the first son of Jaroslav and Jiřina Petrlík. The Petrlik family lived in a shared house with their grandparents in the small South Bohemian village of Petříkov. Jaroslav Petrlík worked as a gardener in České Budějovice. His mother Jiřina Petrlíková (nee Marková) was a housewife. Although none of them was a member of any resistance group or political party, in 1952 they were contacted by CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) agents Josef Lažanský, Josef Klečka and Miroslav Kučerňák, the so-called “agent-walkers”, who sought their help. The Petrlíks let them stay at their home four times and, among other things, helped them with the distribution of anti-communist leaflets. Already during 1952, the entire group, designated by State Security as the “Postman” group, was being monitored. Everything culminated in March 1953, when State Security raided Petříkov and arrested everyone. Karel Petrlík was three and a half years old at the time. His parents were taken to an interrogation room in České Budějovice, where they spent four months in solitary confinement. In a political trial, the communist jurisdiction then handed out a total of nine sentences ranging from 3-13 years. Karel Petrlík’s mother was sentenced to 13 years and his father was sentenced to 12 years. All family property was forfeited to the state. After his parents’ arrest, Karel Petrlík spent about six months in an orphanage in Boršov nad Vltavou, from where family friends, Kateřina and František Jung, took him to Jehličná near Sokolov. Karel Petrlík lived with them until 1959, when his mother was released after half of her sentence. His father returned in 1960 on amnesty. He visited his parents in prison several times. From 1959 he lived again in Petříkov. Even after their return, his parents found no peace, spending six years on probation while still being subjected to ongoing assessments. Jiřina Petrlíková, in particular, had to cope with hostile reactions from her surroundings after returning from communist imprisonment. Karel Petrlík trained as a locksmith and spent most of his working life at the Calofrig company in nearby Borovany. On August 2, 1968, he began his military service at the airport in Bechyně, where he witnessed the Warsaw Pact invasion. After 1989, both of his parents were rehabilitated. As of 2024, Karel Petrlík resided in Trhové Sviny.
