Vladimír Vyskočil

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Vladimír Vyskočil was born on the 24th of March in 1961 in Uherské Hradiště. His mother Marie, née Mařáková, held a blue-collar job in the printing house in Staré Město u Uherského Hradiště, his father, Vladimír, was a clerk in the Uherské Hradiště branch of the Silnice Brno National Company, a road construction enterprise. After Vladimír left basic school, he apprenticed as a plumber in Hodonín. In 1978, ten years after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, when he was 17 years old, he sprayed anti-Soviet slogans on a wall in Staré Město. He was denounced and along with a friend, they were arrested on the spot by the officers of the Public Security (police). What followed was an interrogation, three months of custody in a detention prison in Brno, and the court hearing. For his crime against the state, he was sentenced to a three years suspended sentence. Although his sentence was ended by the President Gustav Husák’s amnesty in 1981, until the 1989 revolution, Vladimír had to withstand threats, intimidation and attempts of character assasination from the State Security [secret police]. The State Security kept spreading false information among his family members, they checked on him both at home and at work. During the Velvet Revolution, Vladimír participated in protests in Uherské hradiště. During the first demonstrations, he still encountered some pressure from the State Security, albeit for the last time. After the Revolution, he was rehabilitated. During recording of the interview in2021, Vladimír Vyskočil still lived in Staré Město u Uherského Hradiště.