I have basically been punished since I was born, no one told me why
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Václav Přibek was born on 15 September 1945 on the farm U Blatských in Luženice, Domažlice region, as the last of three children of Jakub Přibek and Markéta Konopíková. His parents came from an old peasant family from Chod region and farmed their farm until 1953. The farm belonged to his grandfather Václav Konopík, who was the mayor of the village during the First Czechoslovak Republic and a member of the Agrarian Party. Václav Přibek experienced the gradual liquidation of private farmers in the Chodsko region, which ended for the family first with the imprisonment of his father Jakub (1952) and then with the confiscation of the farm and the forced eviction of the entire family to the village of Babí in the Trutnov district (1953) - the official reason was “failure to meet the state’s obligatory supplies”. In Babí he attended primary school, attended religious classes and was confirmed. In 1959 he left the village together with his mother. This was preceded by the arrest and imprisonment of both parents for allegedly “stealing fodder from the state farm Trutnov - Babí”. He attended elementary school in Prague, where he lived with his aunt Marie Konopíková during his parents’ imprisonment. After the return of his parents, the whole family moved to Strašnice, Prague, where his parents lived the rest of their lives. After finishing elementary school, he was not allowed to study further and began to learn to be a bricklayer, working on the construction of a number of Prague housing estates. While working, he finished his eleven-year evening school and successfully graduated in 1965. Later he graduated from an industrial school, completed his pedagogical education and from the 1980s taught future builders at a Prague apprentice school. He lived through the 1968 occupation in Prague - he witnessed the dramatic events on Vinohradská třída. In the 1990s he worked as a construction manager. The farm in Luženice was returned to the family in the 1990s in restitution, but none of the family returned. The part that he still owns is rented to the agrocompany in Luženice. At the time of recording (2021) he lived in Prague.
