“Well the thing was that my brother and my sister emigrated to Switzerland in 1968. Both are much older than me. We have a common father but a different mother, as father got divorced and remarried. And I was born from the second marriage, from the first one, he has my brother and my sister, who emigrated, as I already told you, to Switzerland in 1968, which of course put me in quite a bad light during that time of strict communism and I had quite a lot of trouble because of that.” - “Can you elaborate on the circumstances of them leaving the country? Did you know what they were planning? Or how did it happen?” - “Well there was no way for me to know as I was two years old in 1968 when they emigrated so I couldn´t really know what exactly was happening. But naturally, I found out later, at elementary school and of course at secondary school. I had been corresponding both with my brother and my sister, they helped us a lot, especially after our father died. They sent us so-called 'bons', this currency you could use in Tuzex shops offering Western goods, so we had some extra money which was good as we had to get by with my mother´s salary, as I was brought up by her, so our situation had been quite difficult.”
“After that, we walked the Klicperova street - or The Red February Street as I was called back then (Vítězného února) – towards the theatre. And there were candles which were already lit and I would pin this tricolour badge on, which I still have today as I had been wearing it during the Velvet Revolution, and we went to the hall of residence where we founded the strike committee. On the first day, there had already been this meeting where we clashed with students from the Faculty´s Socialist Youth Union (SSM) committee who had proven themselves to be quite tough negotiators. They were quite hardcore, as in 1968, the Faculty of Education in Hradec Králové had been 'normalised' to a great degree, many teachers had to leave. And some of the Russian, history or civics classes students were children of soldiers and policemen, they were very left-wing. But nonetheless, we managed to establish the strike committee, I still have this paper I had written with names of the representatives, and right after that we held our first meeting, coordinating our activities with the Civic Forum (Občanské fórum) and other universities, mostly with the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Pharmaceutics.”
“We were deliberating over how we would organise the first protest. We didn´t want to call it in the open knowing that Hradec was a Communist city so to speak. So we decided that we would borrow tools, shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows and we would be cleaning the city so to speak while inviting citizens to join the first protest. And fortunately, it had been a huge success as we were inviting people and the first march started in front of the stadium, then we marched the city streets and ended up in the Large Square (Velké náměstí). There we had a loudspeaker provided by Robet Novák, a friend of mine and a colleague from the strike committee, who had borrowed it from a canoeist club. After that, we would have this meeting everyday as a strike committee, and every day there was also a demonstration. A local branch of the Civic Forum had also been established so we would coordinate our actions on that platform, with Oldřich Kužílek, Josef Vágner and many more.”“We were deliberating over how we would organise the first protest. We didn´t want to call it in the open knowing that Hradec was a Communist city so to speak. So we decided that we would borrow tools, shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows and we would be cleaning the city so to speak while inviting citizens to join the first protest. And fortunately, it had been a huge success as we were inviting people and the first march started in front of the stadium, then we marched the city streets and ended up in the Large Square (Velké náměstí). There we had a loudspeaker provided by Robet Novák, a friend of mine and a colleague from the strike committee, who had borrowed it from a canoeist club. After that, we would have this meeting everyday as a strike committee, and every day there was also a demonstration. A local branch of the Civic Forum had also been established so we would coordinate our actions on that platform, with Oldřich Kužílek, Josef Vágner and many more.”
Jindřich Vedlich was born on August 5th 1966 and has been living in Hradec Králové all his life. His two older half-siblings emigrated to Switzerland after 1968. Due to this the whole family were given bad references when applying for a job or university. During his studies at the Faculty of Education in Hradec Králové, he joined a group of anti-regime students frequenting The Shanty (Bouda) Wine-Bar. After the event of November 17th in 1989, he was one of the leading figures of the student strike committee in Hradec Králové together with several friends from the group. They organised the first meeting in the city, cleaning its streets with just the closest friends, but later, as their initiative had been gaining support, they were able to set up bigger protests - a human chain between Hradec Králové, Pardubice and Chrudim, or a construction of a paper wall symbolizing the alienation of the Communist party from the population. He also helped to organise a visit by Mr and Mrs Havel to Hradec Králové in January 1990, which he considers his greatest achievement. After graduation, he had been involved in politics for some time as a Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) member; after that, he has been engaged in politics on a municipal level.
'Paper Wall' created by students during a protest as a symbol of alienation between the Communist party and the people, photo by Miloš Hofman, the final days of 1989
'Paper Wall' created by students during a protest as a symbol of alienation between the Communist party and the people, photo by Miloš Hofman, the final days of 1989
Josef Vágner, one of the founders of Civic Forum organisation in Hradec Králové, speaks to the ČKD employees during the general strike, photo by Vladimír Klišč; November 1989
Josef Vágner, one of the founders of Civic Forum organisation in Hradec Králové, speaks to the ČKD employees during the general strike, photo by Vladimír Klišč; November 1989
