He had a legionnaire dad. He was kicked out of the school system by both the Nazis and the Communists.
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Václav Vaněk was born on 6 February 1926 in Černilov near Hradec Králové. His father, Václav, was a teacher and former legionnaire. His mother, Klára, worked in a farm cooperative. In the 1930s, they moved to Hradec Králové, where they lived through the Second World War. Václav Vaněk Sr. had to retire early. In the last year of his studies at the gymnasium, the witness had to go to forced labour in the Škoda factory. In 1945 he entered the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, majoring in English and Czech language. After the communist takeover in February 1948, his father had to go into forced retirement again. In the 1950s, his sister’s husband and brother-in-law were arrested, and both were imprisoned in the uranium mines in Jáchymov. After graduation, Václav Vaněk was placed in the Liberec region. He taught at various elementary schools for nine years, and as a non-partisan, they did not want to take him to grammar school. Thanks to his mother-in-law, however, he eventually got into the grammar school in Hradec Králové, where he stayed until his retirement. The grammar school often could not accept students for political reasons by order of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In his spare time, he coached a women’s volleyball team. He married Jarmila Čižinská, and together they had two children. In 2022 he lived with his wife in Hradec Králové.
