I was labelled: father self-employed, uncle emigrated
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Oto Šacher was born on 11 October 1941 in Ivančice in the Brno region. He comes from a family of craftsmen. His father Antonín (1910-1973) ran his own carpentry workshop, in which he employed other craftsmen. His mother Gabriela (1914-1971) took care of their household. His uncle Otto Šacher (1917-1990) was a veteran of the WWII from the ranks of the French Foreign Legion, the Free France Forces and finally the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps. Due to his uncle’s resistance activities, the Nazis imprisoned his father Antonín in Kounicovy koleje in Brno during the war, and they sent his grandmother Žofie to the detention camp in Svatobořice. After the February coup in 1948, the parents lost their business. In the 1950s, Oto Šacher graduated from the Secondary School of Electrical Engineering in Brno, but he couldn’t attend university due to his family background. He worked shortly in Tesla in Rožnov, and after returning from the military service in 1962, he joined the Avia company in Ivančice, where he remained until the Velvet Revolution. In 1978, he legally travelled to Switzerland, where he wanted to settle with his family. However, the youngest son didn’t get the travel permission, that’s how the Communists secured the return of the rest of the family. In 1990, after more than 40 years, he met his uncle Otto Šacher in France. At the time of filming (2020), Oto Šacher lived in his native Ivančice.
