After the raid in Rudolfov, I knew I didn’t want to live here anymore
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Petr Bukva was born on 27 June 1954 in Olomouc as the middle of three children. His mother Edith, née Pohlídalová, came from Stará Červená Voda, from a mixed marriage of a Czech and a Sudeten German. Before the war the family moved to Olomouc. Thanks to the work of my grandfather Benedikt Pohlídal at the town hall, they were not displaced after the war, unlike his grandmother’s siblings. His father came from Lutín, from a family of farmers who were later affected by collectivisation. He worked as a bus driver, while his mother spent most of her life as a gatekeeper at Palacký University in Olomouc. Petr trained as a machinist in the TOS factory in Olomouc, where he later worked. He became part of the underground movement and its Olomouc circles. In 1974 he attended a concert in Rudolfov, where a brutal police intervention took place. The lack of freedom he was experiencing led him to the idea of emigration. In 1975 he began working as a stage technician at the Oldřich Stibor Theatre, where he also played smaller roles. In 1981 he married Taťána Mlčochová, with whom he became involved in the promotion and distribution of samizdat literature. In 1982 they emigrated to Germany via Yugoslavia, from where they arrived in Australia a year later. In 1986, they decided to return and try to apply for German citizenship, which was denied in 1989. In April, their son Bondy Peter was born, and they returned to Australia with him in the summer. They first came to Czechoslovakia in 1991, and after a few months left for Germany, where their daughter Andrea was born (1991). They moved permanently to Olomouc in 1996. Petr Bukva eventually returned to working in the theatre. In 2011 he married for second time, to Lenka Daňková. In 2025, at the time of recording, he was living in Olomouc.
