Roman Prajzler

* 1957

Boy Scouts, Relative of a political prisoner
18. - 21. 8. 1969 – mass demonstrations against Soviet occupation, 1968 - 1970 - Second renewal of Junák, 1989 - Third renewal of Junák
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    Roman Prajzler’s father arrested in August 1969

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    “And he would then come visit us every August in summer, that was some cop, and I think that Mum had his daughter in her class, so she knew him, the cop, and so he always stopped by our house before that date in August, he was sent to my dad, to give him a speaking to, basically, so that he wouldn’t make any trouble in August. Back then they took Dad in on 21 August. Like I said, I was little at the time, I was twelve, and you didn’t get things like that at that age, but I know that Mum later told me that we didn’t actually have any information about him for about three months. They just took him in, and they didn’t even let us know, and he was locked up for about three quarters of a year. So that was... And they arrested him for some... Well, it was a year after the Soviet occupation in 1968, so there were some disturbances in Prague.”

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    Reacquiring a confiscated log cabin after 1989

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    “Well, except the way it ended up was that it just wasn’t legally possible. Then one time Norek and I, that was when he turned eighty, we were in Moravia, and basically we got into a bit of a spat because of the cabin, that they weren’t able to get it back. So Norek got angry at us, and me and one other boy, we reckoned we’d go see Kobík and we’d just solve it somehow. Perhaps we could put some money together and buy it. So we set off to see Comrade Kobík, Mr RSNDr. [doctor of Socialist studies] Kobík. We rang at the door, and Mrs Kobíková opened it. We asked if we could speak with her husband, and she stared at us. That was an incredible situation because she said: ‘My husband had his ashes scattered today.’ Well, and we didn’t know about that of course, but it was such an embarrassing situation... If we had known it was his funeral that day, we wouldn’t have come. So we sorted it out somehow in the end, and we put the money together and bought the cabin sometime in 1995.”

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    Praha 6 - Petřiny, 09.12.2014

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    duration: 22:19
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Mum always made the cop a coffee, and he sat with us for a while. I guess he always crossed Dad off the list and went on his way

Snímek 011 (kopie).jpg (historic)
Roman Prajzler
photo: Lukáš Žentel
photo: Lukáš Žentel
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Roman Prajzler was born on 19 April 1957 in Rokytnice nad Jizerou. Before he began primary school he moved with his parents to Prague. He missed the mountains and the countryside, and so he applied to be a Scout as soon as the Czech Scouting Movement was renewed for the second time in 1968. His Dejvice troop was active until 1972, when Scouting was dissolved once again. But the Communist regime’s aversion to Scouting did not hurt the witness as much as the fact that on 21 August 1969, on the first anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, his father was arrested during a protest. The family had absolutely no information about him for three months. Roman Prazler’s father spent three quarters of a year in prison. And after his release he was regularly checked on at his home by State Security.

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Mládí v Nesvobodě

  • date:
    31.08.2015
  • medium type:
    Broadcasting
  • medium name:
    Příběhy našich sousedů
  • author:
    ZŠ Marjánka