Peter Stuchlík

* 1958

  • "Synthesia belongs to Babiš. For this surgical oxy-cellulose plant, an investment of 80 million was needed, and Synthesia received a 55 million subsidy, which it was not entitled to at all, because these subsidies were intended for small and medium-sized enterprises, not for a giant like Synthesia. Moreover, the subsidies were 40 or 50 per cent, not 55 million of an 80 million investment, but that is beside the point. In my lifetime, simply when a new technology was being built, in every one of them there was a machine that didn't work as it should have. But here, the people who designed it, this oxycelluose plant, they had maybe a blackout, or I don't know how would I call it. They managed to design a technology that was wrong from start to finish. As I worked in the research facility where the surgical oxycellulose was developed, so I was one of the few in the country who knew anything about it. Well, this misbehavior of mine was that I calculated that if you tore it down, this technology, and start again from scratch, it would work out cheaper than converting it into a technology that would actually work. And when I brought this to Babiš's attention, the then-CEO of Synthesia soiled himself and he fired me."

  • "When the Warsaw Pact invasion took place in August 1968, we were on holiday in Yugoslavia. And here I give a big compliment to Tito's government, which gave a helping hand to all the Czechoslovak families who registered for aid there. So we... and our story is the same as many others, we all received this aid from the Yugoslav government of Tito. We moved, or we were moved from the camp where we were living in a tent, to a villa where we had free accommodation and food. We could have gone anywhere in the world. The Yugoslav government provided us with travel documents, so we specifically got French passports and an apartment in Paris. But my mother insisted that we return to the Republic for the sake of our family."

  • "After he was elected president, he arrived in his Tatra 603 at the Svoboda Square, where we were assembled to greet him. Not just citizens, I was still in the Scout Movement at that time, so we were there as a Scout troop and I was, I don't know if I was already a leader of the troop, but for some reason I was standing in the front row. And as he was walking by greeting people, he came up to me, patted me on the head, said a few words, and I said something back. And as he walked around the square, some people came and took me to him and we talked for a while."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 21.10.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:58:57
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Praha, 09.12.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 01:45:21
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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My father feared he would be killed if he returned home after the occupation

Peter Stuchlík with his sister Katrin on a holiday in Bulgaria, 1964
Peter Stuchlík with his sister Katrin on a holiday in Bulgaria, 1964
photo: archiv pamětníka

Peter Stuchlík was born on 25 June 1958, in Bratislava to a communist family. At the beginning of the war, his grandfather helped several Jews in the vicinity of his home village of Málince in Slovenské Rudohoří to escape. His father, Jiří Stuchlík, worked at the Vajnory military airport in Bratislava and then taught at the Military Academy in Brno. In the spring of 1968, he co-signed the Military Memorandum, which called for a separate military doctrine independent of the USSR. At the beginning of the Normalization era, he was fired from his job and expelled from the Communist Party, as was his wife. Constant interrogations at the StB and repeated arrests followed. Although Peter Stuchlík and his sister were destined for only a blue-collar job, he managed to graduate from two universities. All his life he devoted himself to research tasks in the field of chemistry and medical technology and materials. In the 1990s, he served for several years as chairman of the Porta Association, which organized a festival of folk and country music. In 2023, he lived in Brno.