Josef Hlava

* 1958

  • “For example, the StB raided our apartment in ’68, ran us out to the gallery, turned our place upside down, and left. I may have been 10 or 12 at the time. I had no idea what was going on. All I know… I had this tiny Matchbox car, and as they were throwing things around, it broke. I kicked one of them in the leg and got punched so hard, I looked like a Hawaiian janitor. That fuelled my repulsion for them. After that, I would often argue with them and fight them, such as during the Peace Festival in Brno-Líšeň one day. How old was I? Maybe 15 or 16. We tore up Russian flags there. Of course, they beat us up real hard with their ‘vulcanised Marxism-Leninism teachers’, the police batons. I fled because I was a good athlete. I used to play football for Moravská Slavia and handball for Lokomotiva Heršpice, so I was in good shape. I ran away, but they beat the other boys until they said my name, and then the police came to get me in school. It was worse for me because I had run away.”

  • “We didn’t really see the first airliner; we just saw something smoking way up high, clouds of smoke. You can see the smoke rolling in the photo and in the footage.” – “And the second airplane?” – “The second airplane made so much noise, it made me turn around, and I saw it flying low, terribly low. And then it hit the other tower. What a blow. The second tower collapsed first because it was hit very low. It was terrifying [...] They made us leave, so we went to the Brooklyn Bridge. We kept on filming, just walking around. People stood there in horror, watching what was going on. That’s when we could see people jumping out of the building; it must have been… I can’t even imagine being in a situation so desperate as to jump from such immense height.”

  • “I used to be a boy scout. The club got closed down and children went to the Pioneer organisation. They gave everyone the red handkerchiefs and admitted everyone in, but not me: ‘Not you, Hlava! You were a boy scout, so get out! You cannot be a Pioneer with us. You are politically wrong.’ As a child, you just don’t get it. Like, why?! My response was, I beat one of those Pioneers up and tore his handkerchief to bits. [It was] one of those bad kids who would tell on others and so on.”

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    Brno, 20.07.2021

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    duration: 02:14:44
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
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I have always done as I deemed fit. When they forbade me, I confronted them.

Josef Hlava in 2021
Josef Hlava in 2021
photo: Post Bellum

Josef Hlava was born in Brno on 9 March 1958. His father Karel Hlava, born in 1902, witnessed both world wars. He was injured in WWI. He worked as the head of a train crew. He most likely met Josef’s mother Marie Hlavová, née Punčochářová, at work on the railway; she was a train conductor. The witness had five siblings. His father died tragically in 1976. The witness completed vocational training as a sign painter. He played handball from the 1970s on. Later on, he was a handball coach. He left to serve in the military in 1978. He was stationed at a checkpoint on the Czechoslovak-Austrian border. In 1989, he took part in the Velvet Revolution protests in Brno. When his mother died, he flew to the USA in 2001 to visit his brother Pavel Hlava, and the two witnessed the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center first-hand on 11 September. The witness lived near the Vranov Dam in 2021.