Professor Zdeněk Ziegler

* 1932

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  • "They were the kind of people you understood they wanted to do politics. We wanted to do our own thing a little bit. We weren't really that involved politically. Whoever says that about themselves is kind of telling lies. But it was a group of capable people who took it into their own hands. In them it was courage, but on the other hand it was also an agenda that was already there. We didn't believe they would be successful. That was it, you know? We admired them, we liked it, but we didn't believe it would turn around, but we believed it would help it a little bit, that it would be a little bit looser."

  • "That year 1948, when I was sixteen, was a big blow. That was the election, we put up posters for the National Socialists and the People's Party, but the Communists won. Well, the Communists really then, everybody knows how it went on. Well, there was always somebody in the street who was the main one, they called it 'the tenner', who reported on us. In the future it showed. I didn't get into any college, so I went to work, but that was very nice. I applied to university. That got rejected, so I applied to art school. That's when I went to Pelc and he called me after the exam, 'Hey, you're more for Hoffmeister,' so I went to Hoffmeister. He invited me back, saying he was going to send me to do an internship in animation for a year. It was clear that I had such a cadre profile that they couldn't take me on even if they wanted to. So I ended up in animation and then I went to the army. That was an interesting thing. The army, the soldiers were well cadre profiled. There were Auxuliary Engineering Corps (AEC), my brother was still there. When I served the military service, there was no more AEC, but we were in air defense. Also the thing where you don't meet the enemy, you're in the back somewhere. There were similar individuals like me. There was our platoon leader Holk, originally a baker. I had friends that I played basketball and skied with. They said, 'Go to university. We're architects, so go to architecture school.' What would I do in architecture school? So I actually applied to architecture school. At that time there was a ZVP, a deputy for political affairs, and he was a teacher they appointed there. His name was Tonda Rouša. He said, 'Hey, come here. You're applying to university. We're going to recommend you, but look at all the reference you have from your residence.' He disposed of all that. It didn't go any further. I only had a reference from my employment, which was favourable, and a reference from the army, which was a recommendation, and I was eventually admitted to that school. The nice thing was, when I was in about my sixth year, they were going to make me an assistant, and all of a sudden they looked and said they didn't have the documents. I knew a guy named Slíva, he was a big communist, who offered me an assistant position, and he said, 'Man, we asked for your papers, and now it's a mystery what you're doing here. We should fire you immediately. No assistant.' But I graduated peacefully."

  • "In the Protectorate, the way it was lived was that everyone was careful what they said, and there was always the danger that you would end up badly somehow. A trusted friend of ours was executed during the period after the Heydrich´s assassination and that was the fear then." - "Do you remember that atmosphere of fear?" - "It was interesting because the Czechs stuck together more then than before. You knew exactly who was a collaborator, and nobody associated with them. I went to grammar school as a boy, so I remember that we had this organization and we met in a passage. I went to the grammar school, which was in Příkopy, and there we would meet and we would write on the wall SO, as the Secret Organization. Then the Heydrich came and they started to investigate it as a serious thing. So the headmaster Vocílka summoned us and said, 'So how was it?' We told him that we had set up a secret organization, so we all got hit with a cane on our hands, and he dealt with the Germans."

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    Praha, 27.01.2022

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    duration: 02:06:52
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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After the occupation, most sought a place in the shadows

Zdeněk Ziegler on skis, one of his many sports hobbies
Zdeněk Ziegler on skis, one of his many sports hobbies
photo: Witness´s archive

Zdeněk Ziegler was born on 27 October 1932 in Prague into a family of a lawyer and a designer. His grandfather was a prominent lawyer and judge Emerich Polák and his uncle a well-known surgeon of the same name. He survived the Second World War in Prague quarter of Hanspaulka. After February 1948, his father had to find a job as a labourer because he lost his law practice. The witness was accompanied by an unsuitable cadre profile and at first he could not think about university education. After working in animation at Barrandov and completing his military service, he managed to get a better position and was accepted to study architecture at the Czech Technical University. After graduating in 1961, he was admitted to the Union of Czechoslovak Artists, and thus worked as a “freelancer”. In 1969 he was expelled from the union and after the emigration of his brother Karel he was unable to leave Czechoslovakia until 1980, after which he had better conditions for work and contact with the world. Since 1963, he has produced several dozen film posters for the Central Film Distribution Agency. At the same time, he still works as a book designer, with 1300 publications to his credit. From 1990 to 2003, he taught at the graphic design studio of the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Prague (VŠUP) and served as rector for three years. During his career, he collected a number of important awards at home and abroad. He also taught graphic design in the USA, France and Germany.