It will take two more generations
Jan Tůma was born on 31 July 1948 in the small village of Sviny in the Tábor region and he spent most of his life in South Bohemia. Before his fifteenth birthday, he had to leave home and move in with relatives in České Budějovice to avoid having to join the Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JZD) and to be able to study at secondary school. In 1967-1973 he studied nuclear fuels and radiochemistry at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. In January 1969 he attended Jan Palach’s funeral as a guard at the grave. He worked as a technologist at the uranium ore processing plant MAPE Mydlovary, then he worked in various positions in the energy and ecology sectors. In 1990-1992 Jan Tůma served as a representative of the Civic Forum in the city council of České Budějovice, he supported the establishment of the local organisation of the Civic Democratic Party, but left it later. He was re-elected to the city council in 2010 on behalf of the Citizens for Budějovice movement. The family of his wife, Marie Panochová from Hartmanice, was evicted from their farm in the mid-1950s in the Kulak action. They were moved to completely inadequate premises, lost their property, and the father was imprisoned several times. In 2021 Jan Tůma was living in České Budějovice.