“It was worse at school because I started attending a German one, and that also meant joining Hitler’s Youth - the Hitlerjugend. I began wearing short black trousers, a brown shirt, and a dagger under my belt. And so it was that when I went out with the Hitlerjugend during their provocation marches around Hradec, to show they were here, my Czech friends gaped at me, and then later beat me up when they met me without Hitlerjugend protection. And on the other hand it didn’t change anything in the matter that when Hitlerjugend members saw me chatting with Czech boys, I was beaten by them as well. So I was something of a beating bag, and at the time I didn’t really understand why. A person in that situation has no idea of any kind of circumstances or context.”
“Yes, there were extremes. That was one of the most popular actresses of the normalisation process, the so-called Red Twiggy, or Mrs Amortová. So of course I also got into a fight with her, twice in fact. The first time was when we quarrelled over how to enact the third fairy in some fairy tale. And she told me: ‘Right, Karel, I don’t want you to cast me.’ Which was actually fantastic because in those dark times we had to fill out questionnaires with the number of actors we had cast from the obligatory actors list. And I didn’t use Amortová. And I always said: ‘I’m sorry, but Comrade Amortová does not want me to cast her.’ So that was one advantage.”
“There were a lot of comic situations there, for example Vlado Príkazský, who was in the main building of the Czechoslovak Radio for the whole time [of the occupation in August 1968], and he phoned me from the central office: ‘Look, Kája, do you need anything? Are you grinding?’ That’s how we called it back then - when you’re broadcasting - you’re grinding. And I told him: ‘Sure, we’re grinding,’ and more out of fun than anything I added: ‘And listen, if you happen by, I’d need a sack of rye flour, so send one up here.’ And about fifteen minutes later Kamila Moučková [the surname means ‘flour’ in Czech - transl.] came along, because he interpreted it that we need an announcer.”
Karel Weinlich was born on 6 April 1930 in Jihlava. His mother wasn’t able to care for him, so he grew up with his grandfather. When his grandfather died, he briefly lived with his mother, who had meanwhile married a Reich German. He was forced to attend a German primary school and join the Hitlerjugend. He could hardly speak any German, he remained distant from both his mother and her husband, he tried to boycott his Nazi upbringing, leading to him being placed into a correctional camp on the border with Poland. At the end of World War II he escaped from there and returned to his mother. They were both supposed to be expelled, but his mother’s friends managed to have her removed from the list, thus allowing them to stay in Czechoslovakia. But when his mother found herself a new boyfriend, Karel Weinlich left and scraped along by himself. He considered emigrating, he even set off to the borders a few times, but he always turned back in the end. Finally, he found himself a job as a factory gatekeeper at Sfinx, and through the efforts of the workers, who took him under their care, he set of to study. He was accepted to an actor’s conservatoire, but in the end he graduated in radio direction from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Already as a student he began working with Czechoslovak Radio as an assistant director, and upon completing his studies he was given the position of director at the Main Editorial Department for Children and Youth. He continued to work for Czechoslovak Radio, later Czech Radio, until his retirement in 1996.
