Karel Habal

* 1950

  • “It was already the late 1980s when I had two run-ins with the local police. The first one was really interesting. I was summoned for a hearing on account of distributing videotapes with anti-socialist, anti-Soviet, and anti-Libyan content. Incredible.” – “You were summoned to the police station?” – “Yep, I still have the envelope, signed by lieutenant Vacková or Vaňková. That must have been in nineteen eighty-seven, eight, or nine. And I was identified through a friend in Slovakia. I had really been going to these swap meets with records and later, with videotapes, and the stuff was quickly spreading and circulating, and they discovered my address somewhere in Košice and in the end, got to me.” – “And in what way had your activities been anti-Libyan?” – “To this day I don’t know. It had probably something to do with American action movies.” – “Something against terrorism?” – “No idea. Hijacking planes, that sort of thing. I really, honestly don’t know.” – “And the second interrogation?” – “The second one was the last one. It took place directly at the headquarters in Bartolomějská street. The reason was that they had come across my address at Petr Cibulka’s house, another usual suspect who was also into distributing records. And so they sent me a summons. This time the whole thing only took half an hour, they offered me a cigarette and I thought it was odd, quite laid-back, a kind of friendly chat around the coffee table, so that had me thinking that the wind was changing. And that’s how it all finished, the interrogations, the police, everything…”

  • “In the 1960s, I was interested in politics as I was naturally trending to the West. I was West-inclined in terms of fashion, music, everything. And I witnessed the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968 quite unexpectedly with a friend from dance classes in Slovakia in the High Tatras. His mother had paid for our stay in Smokovec and we were coming back to Bratislava on the night of August the 20th. It was an overnight train, and, in the morning, I was still a bit sleepy when I noticed that people around us were somewhat unnerved, so I asked someone what the matter was and he answered in Slovak, ,We’ve been invaded by the Warsaw Pact army’. By the time we made it to Bratislava, it had descended into chaos. We walked from the train station to the square by the Danube and there were crowds of people. Then there was a sudden loud bang, and I could see that they were carrying somebody. Loads of Russian, or in fact Soviet vehicles were crossing the bridge across the Danube. And one Soviet soldier had been hit with something, so the people carried him outside and attended to his injuries – which is something I will always view as right and decent – but they threw the vehicle into the Danube.”

  • “Regarding those records, how I got hold of them in England. They cost a pretty penny and I was limited by the so-called foreign-currency pledge, and to smuggle cash… It wasn’t that hard to obtain the cash from illegal moneychangers, but to smuggle it to England was a problem. If they found the cash above a certain limit on your person, not only would they detain you, but you’d also be criminally charged. So, my solution was to bring clothes, second-hand stuff, shit that I could sell. Once I even brought a mandolin because I knew that it could be sold as an antiquity. And believe it or not, I even brought records from Czechoslovakia over to England. I would bring English bands released by Supraphon, for example the Beatles. There weren’t that many, but a few records had been released over here and they were really valued by the English collectors, they paid well. And so, for a few records I cashed in tens of pounds, which I in turn spent on buying new ones. Every time I went over after 1987, I would bring back some five to ten records.”

  • “So, these record swaps, or open-air markets, they were also linked to the smuggling of records. These swaps moved around town, initially there was one in Španělská street behind the Central Station, then in Motol, Letná, or Petřín just off the Nebozízek Restaurant, not sure if it’s still there. So, every time, the swap would run for a year or two, and then there was a crackdown. They would raid the market, scatter the crowd, not sure if they actually picked anyone up, but there were some people with huge suitcases full of brand-new records, their daddies worked at the Ministry of Interior, though. Once there was a raid in Letná, we got rounded and then they marched us down this cordon. I’m walking down and see these two cops, and I said to one of them, ‘How’s it going?’ and he says ,Not too bad,’ and out I was. Before he knew it, I slipped out, that was all it took.”

  • Full recordings
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    Praha, 04.07.2022

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    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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    Praha, 11.07.2022

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    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
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    Praha, 01.08.2022

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    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
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My faith was my only certainty in uncertain times

Karel Habal in England
Karel Habal in England
photo: Archiv pamětníka

Karel Habal was born on July 4, 1950, in Prague’s neighbourhood Žižkov. While he was growing up, he adopted his mother’s religion and his father’s empathy for the fellow man. His father and uncle returned to Czechoslovakia after the Second World War from Argentina, where they had gone in the mid-1930s. Karel Habal went to primary school in Na Smetance street. In the mid-1960s, his classmate introduced him to the music broadcast of Radio Free Europe. After primary school, he went to a Land Surveying Tech school to gain a qualification that was not restricted by the communist regime. He let his hair grow out and started criticizing the regime. He discovered his first vinyl records with Western rock music at a swap meet in Wenceslas Square. He witnessed the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968 while he was visiting Bratislava with a friend. A year later, he actively participated on anti-establishment protests in Prague. He was conscripted into the army in the same year and stationed in Slovak Zvolen. He spent nineteen months of the two-year-long service as a land surveyor with the state-run company Military Constructions, and the last five as a crew member of an armoured personnel carrier in Domažlice. He finds this period to have been the most difficult in his life. He started travelling to East Germany and Poland in the early 1970s and in 1978, visited the UK for the first time. This is where he discovered punk, which was a major influence for the next few years. After returning from his second trip to England in 1980, he and Ivo Pospíšil founded the band Garáž and Habal wrote the lyrics for some of their early songs. Simultaneously, he became the band manager of Classic Rock’n’Roll Band, which had been originally called Old Teenagers. In 1985, he got married. He and his wife have two children. When he visited England for the third time, a friend introduced him to Zdeněk Mastník, the owner of Interpress publishing house and bookshop in London. With his help, Karel Habal started distributing samizdat literature to and from Czechoslovakia. At the same time, he continued smuggling vinyl records into the country, with a new addition of video tapes. On November 12, 1989, he attended the canonisation of Agnes of Bohemia and later, joined the demos in Wenceslas Square and Národní třída. After the revolution, he and his family moved to Říčany, where they were still living at the time of the interview.