"It simply came to our notice then. In a year and a half, in two, there were checks when the communists were expelled or deleted. The exclusion was worse. First they went to university teachers, the technicians came to us about a year later. There were commissions that checked people. And they invited me too. The crucial question was whether we agreed to the entry of troops. I said no. I had already finished school and I think it was Professor Mazanec who told me: 'Mr. Engineer, with such opinions you end up on the periphery of the company. You won't get any further. ' I say, 'Professor, that will be enough for me.' "
"Some people could not have an exhibition at the time. I figured out that it was necessary to find out where there was a space where it could be done, and most importantly, if there was a person who was willing to take a small risk. We managed to find it in several places. First, Milan Weber began doing exhibitions at the Music Theater, where there was a smaller hall. For example, Adriena Šimotová exhibited there in 1980 or 1979, I don't know exactly. And Ivo [Janoušek] discovered a cultural house in Orlová. It was such a socialist, ground-floor building, where Mrs. Pzcolk was, of course, set aside, but she knew which one was beating. Before they began to realize that something was happening, we ordered them seven or eight exhibitions of top Czechs and Slovaks. Pretzel, Sikora, Melis and others. "
"I came to school, it was 1952 or 1953. The teacher was standing at the blackboard. Unaware of nothing bad, I began to console her: 'Comrade teacher, why are you crying?"' She suddenly stopped crying, and stared me with intense stare full of hate, she opened her hand and slapped me and started to shout. "You don't know that comrade Stalin died? 'I remembered that Comrade Stalin must be a very good father. So I was trained from an early age. "
"I did not see anything. When it exploded, shards from the cartridge case flew into my eyes. I didn't see anything for a week, then they dripped it off. I didn't really see anything until three weeks later, when the dirt got out of my eyes. It exploded, I probably fell to the ground, but I was conscious because I got up. I saw blood pouring from my hand. I tucked it under my sweater and walked up to the local bridge. I tried to hitchhike from there. When he saw me, the driver I stopped was almost bulging. He took me to the hospital and I ended up there. My parents were gone, my mother was in Hoštálková near Krnov's aunt's, so I was alone. Nobody knew about me. And the boy who was with me, and that was a lesson for life about the nature of human beings, immediately ran away cowardly. "
Kamil Drabina was born on January 24, 1946 into a working-class family in Frýdek-Místek. After graduating from chemical engineering highschool in Ostrava, he worked for a year as a chemist in gasworks. He graduated remotely from the University of Mining, and at the same time worked as a technical assistant for science and research at the local coking department. Due to disagreement with the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he had to leave. He then worked at the Research Institute of Iron Metallurgy in Dobrá, where he began working in the environment in the 1980s. From a young age he was interested in fine arts. In the 1970s and 1980s, he co-organized exhibitions of artists of the unofficial art scene from the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the Ostrava region. In November 1989, he was chairman of the strike committee of the research institute in Dobrá. In free circumstances, he managed the branch of the Czech Environmental Inspectorate in Ostrava for about ten years. Karel Drabina died in August 2020.
With the gallerist and girlfriend Libuša Olšáková at the opening of the exhibition in the Langův dům gallery in Frýdek-Místek, around the end of the 1990s
With the gallerist and girlfriend Libuša Olšáková at the opening of the exhibition in the Langův dům gallery in Frýdek-Místek, around the end of the 1990s
