RNDr. Miroslav Vostatek

photo: Post Bellum
Download image

Miroslav Vostatek was born on 19 September 1930 in Ledeč nad Sázavou in Vysočina region. He grew up during the First Republic in the family of a self-employed man and typographer František Vostatek and he was one of three siblings. His grandfather Jan Vostatek ran a printing company in the town near Sázava since 1894. After WWI, he moved his business from rented premises in Grandhotel in Ledeč nad Sázavou to a newly built house and he also established a branch in Dolní Kralovice. The witness started to study at the newly founded Real grammar school in Ledeč nad Sázavou in 1946 and he was one of the first successful graduates of the school four years later. He then left to study Pharmacy at the Faculty of Medicine in Brno and thus he partly avoided communist restrictions concerning the nationalisation of family printing company in Ledeč. The former owner of the printing company Jan Vostatek died in 1949 and his son František was to succeed him, and he was appointed by the national enterprise as head of operations. However, the former Vostatek’s printing company was gradually brought to ruin by the national enterprise and later the dilapidated building had to be removed. After the witness graduated from university, he started to work in the national enterprise of the East Bohemian Chemical Works in Rybitví, where he first worked as an assistant technician and was later promoted to operations foreman. The witness was from 1957 registered by State Security as a secret police collaborator under the codename ‘Rostislav’ and the collaboration was ended in 1962 for failure to fulfil the tasks. He and his family lived in Pardubice where we worked as the head of laboratory at Pardubice Hospital. He was a regular contributor to Ledečský zpravodaj (the Ledeč Newsletter) and was interested in war history and philately. In September 2020 he celebrated his 90th birthday. At the time of the recording in 2022, he lived in Pardubice.