“I studied at Geneva University - sociology - but I didn’t complete the course. Although I had a permanent contract, after five years the comrades told me that I’m only allowed to be abroad for five years and that I have to go back home. I gave notice. They offered that I could emigrate - they were interested in me. I knew I had a family here, my brother was he, had a family as well. I know what happened in the late Fifties with the families of emigrants - they got a permanent record and they didn’t have a chance. I didn’t want anyone at home to suffer because of me.”
“Although a Communist, I became an enemy of Communists. After spending five years abroad I had accessed information that wasn’t available here. I found out about the Gulag, all those monstrosities. I understood that there isn’t such a difference between Communism and Fascism, that they’re both dictatorships, just with a slightly different ideology. [...] I took part in what culminated in Prague Spring, and was very active in all that was going on, I became vice-chairman of the lawyers’ union.”
“When they issued me my passport at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they asked me to help them with information in places that our diplomats cannot reach. I later found out it was the State Security intelligence service. At the time I was a loyal Communist, so I regarded it as a duty to my country, it was intelligence, so no snitching on people, but watching to see if there is something in the works aimed against Czechoslovakia, or something that Czechoslovakia could participate in. The things that diplomats do every day. Back then our diplomats were blocked from doing this, they were isolated.”
“They chose 50 of the 220 [applicants]. Someone came here and did a written test with us and took it back to Geneva. They chose nine of us and interviewed us, they chose three people for the ILO Director-General, one judge from Pilsen, one person from the Youth Union, and me. The Communists were rooting for the one from the Youth Union, they [ILO] wanted the judge, but he was a National Socialist - that was unacceptable to our Communists. I was a Communist, just a rank-and-file member, but I was an assistant professor, I spoke good English and a bit of French, so I was the one chosen, and I went to Geneva for five years.”
“I grew up in China and Asians consider me to be the greatest Asian among Europeans. When I’m with them, I behave as one of them. I grew up among them for fifteen years. [...] You will never see me not laughing. Even if I’m sick, I’ll still smile. I got that from the Chinese. You won’t see me complain, even when something hurts me. They say that when you complain, you hurt your friends and delight your enemies. And that’s inappropriate.”
Prof. JUDr. Igor Tomeš was born in 1931 in Brno. His grandfather Karel Tomeš held the office of mayor of Brno from 1925 to 1935, his father worked as a sales representative of the Škoda Works. In the years 1932‒1936 and 1939‒1946 he lived with his parents in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other cities of the Far East. After returning to Czechoslovakia he completed an English grammar school in Prague and studied at the Faculty of Law of Charles University (FLCU) in 1951‒1955. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) while at university, and after graduating he obtained the post of assistant professor at the Department of Labour Law FLCU. In the years 1959‒1963 he was employed by the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. After returning to Prague he habilitated himself in 1966 as a “docent” in the field of labour law and social security. He was politically active during Prague Spring, in January to September 1968 he presided over the CPC faculty committee. In 1970 he was forced to leave his post, after a year of unemployment he found a job as a sociologist and lawyer at the Techno-Economical Institute of the Mining Industry. In the years 1989‒1991 he held the post of deputy minister of labour and social affairs. In 1992 he co-founded the Department of Social Labour at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University together with Jiřina Šiklová; he continues to lecture there.
