"In that factory, they initially forbade it (strikes), of course. It was against them. They pushed people not to leave the machines. And at one gathering, I saw the militiamen go in thinking they would breaking it up. But there were already so many people that even the thirty or fifty militiamen were not enough to disperse eight hundred to a thousand people. They couldn't do that. I myself was there."
"Militiamen in the Tatras, it was a bang. When they appeared somewhere, it was sure that it would go wrong. When I realize that the militias were only abolished in March 1990, I get a chill running down my spine. They kept lurking, waiting for a signal to step in. Everything was already changing and the militiamen were still on guard. So in that respect, Tatra was very backward. They did not back down from established principles until someone repealed them. There was still inner fear within the factory. We felt it in December and January. Havel was already at the castle, but in Kopřivnice everything seemed to harden. We felt that the militias were still here, and as we later learned, they were on alert, even though some of their weapons had already been taken away. But they were available."
"In 1984, I joined the People's Party. Entry was rather complicated. The Communists monitored carefully how many members of the People's Party could be in a certain cell, allowing only a limited number of people to enter. That's just how it was. For the Nový Jičín district, this is documented by historians. The restriction of new members has been going on since the 1960s. When I joined, it was no longer so strictly controlled, but the communists in the city received a list of people who wanted to join another political party and approved whether they would let them join in. And the party had to comply. That was incredible. What do you want to say about freedom. What freedom?”
"In November, when the students arrived, we started meeting. I was approached by a person, I don't even know who it was today, that I should come to a certain house in the Korean housing estate one evening, in the basement, that there will be a meeting there and that we will talk about what is happening there. So I came there and there were maybe 20 people and there were just some of the students from Prague who were studying there at the time, so they had fresh information."
"I came from a Christian family, we went to church as children and I so couldn't choose much. I was just destined to study in the technical field. That was already the case then. And even the headmaster in elementary school told me in the eighth grade that I might not even get into industrial school, that I lacked a certain (family) profile I should have. In the end, I got into industrial engineering and the only option after graduating from industrial school, after graduation, was to study engineering. So I chose engineering in Brno, where I passed the entrance exams - and then I worked there until 1973, when I graduated from college, at the time I studied for the Tatra, because I wanted to work here, I was here at home and I studied cars and equipment."
"The statue of Masaryk was rather an interesting one; it had already been demolished twice, and when we entered the town hall in December 1989 and January 1990, we found out that it was not known where the statue was. It was a bronze statue of Masaryk. Well, we finally discovered the statue in the archives of the district museum in Nový Jičín, where it was stored underground, in a hay that it would not get destroyed. We didn't get any information about who kept her there, but it was a certain man, a patriot, who didn't want it to get lost. So we discovered it and one of our first tasks in the 90's was to place Masaryk´s statue up in its original place right on the Kopřivnice square. We were given the task, and we proceeded so that on March 7, 1990, the day of Masaryk's birthday, the statue was ceremoniously unveiled. And thus Masaryk returned to his original place."
Jaroslav Šula was born on July 7, 1948 in Kopřivnice. The parents were originally self-employed. They owned a general store, which the Communists confiscated in 1957 without providing any compensation. Then they worked in the Tatras. They were both Catholics and educated their children to the faith. Jaroslav went to religion classes and also ministered in the church. After industrial school, he graduated from the Brno University of Technology. In 1973, he joined Tatra as a designer. He first participated in the construction of diesel engines, later moved to the car repair plant and the technical development department. He was a member of the Czechoslovak People’s Party. After November 17, 1989, he helped carry out a revolution against the Communists in Kopřivnice. From 1990 to 1994, then from 2011 to 2014, he was elected Deputy Mayor of Kopřivnice as the People’s Party. In 1998, he won the Senate elections of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in Kopřivnice. He worked as a senator for six years. He is married and has five children. In 2021 he lived in Kopřivnice.
