I swore an oath to defend my country against the enemy. There was no telling who that enemy would be
Zbyněk Čeřovský was born in Hořice v Podkrkonoší on 13 July 1931. His family was of the left-wing orientation. His grandfather, who worked in a textile factory, was originally an anarchist, later a social democrat and finally a Communist Party official in Hořice. His mother was a ladies’ dressmaker and his father worked for the Elektrolux company. When the witness was eight years old, he experienced the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia by Nazi Germany. In the autumn of 1945, his father was offered a job as a national administrator of the agricultural machinery shop in Litoměřice where Zbyněk Čeřovský attended the Josef Jungmann General High School. After graduation, he entered the Officer Cadet School and from there, he was assigned against his will to the Artillery Military Academy in Hranice na Moravě in August 1950. He was discharged in the lieutenant rank on 3 August 1952 and assigned to the 32nd Heavy Artillery Brigade in Kostelec nad Orlicí. He was selected to study at the Klement Gottwald Military Academy in 1953. In the autumn of 195,8 he joined the 45th Artillery Reconnaissance Aviation Regiment at Plzeň-Bory Airport. He was assigned to Mimoň Airport in 1961 as the Chief of Staff of the Evaluation and Photography Centre, and in 1965 he became its commander. The following year he joined the 18th Fighter Bomber Aviation Regiment in Pardubice as the Chief of Staff, and when it was disbanded in 1967 he received orders to report to the 30th Fighter Bomber Aviation Regiment in Hradec Králové. This is where he was caught by the August 1968 invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia. Zbyněk Čeřovský, together with several other pilots, starkly opposed the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops. He was therefore expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1969 and dismissed from the army in May 1970. In the autumn of 1976 he was arrested by the StB for alleged anti-state activities and held in detention until February 1977. After his release, he signed Charter 77. He also became more involved in anti-regime activities. Among other things, he established contact with the US and German embassies. At the same time, he was monitored as part of the StB project called the Neighbour. On the evening of 9 November 1981, he was detained by the StB again, and after several months of interrogations, he was brought to trial and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He met many opponents of the communist regime in the prison in Plzeň-Bory, including Jiří Dienstbier Sr., Dominik Duka and Václav Havel. After his release from prison, he was deported to Germany together with his wife and son as part of the StB project known as Asanace. The Čeřovský family returned to Czechoslovakia after the November 1989 revolution. In September 1991, he took up the offer of the post of director of the prison in Prague-Pankrác.