Vladimír Hokr

* 1976

  • "As for the border, we knew that we could go one direction but not the other. My grandmother was from Údolí and my father from Olešnice, those were the directions inland. I actually never got close towards the state border. I entered this area for the first time as an eight-grader when we had a farewell party there. It was June in the nineties. It was about five hundred meters or one kilometre from the border. Then, of course, there was Veveří, but at that time I didn´t understand that it used to be a village, of which only the school was left."

  • "We didn´t really notice the propaganda because it was everywhere around us and it was permanent. We were only kids and we didn´t know anything else. We just took it as a source of information, someone followed it more, someone less. I remember events we attended as kids. There were peace festivities that took place in Nové Hrady, and my mother, as the head of culture, organized it. We heard someone speaking into the microphone at the beginning of the event but we hardly paid attention. We were looking forward to the singers, competitions and market stands. I can tell you about May Day, I remember some people standing on the stage with a carp: 'Fishermen greet 1st May' and all these things, it was a must, but it wasn´t aggressive, we just took it as an activity. Perhaps - being kids - we didn't even realize the meaning.

  • We went to Weitra, from Weitra we went to Harbach, from Harbach to Mandelstein. And there, from the viewpoint, which is today a famous tourist place, we looked back. And there I saw for the first time the place, that I learnt about at school, where meetings of the expelled Germans (I don´t want to call then Sudeten Germans because I don´t like this title) have taken place. People, who were bond with this region, have met up at this place. And I remember that at school and in general they kept telling us: 'Up there the fires are burning, it is the Germans, they are the bad ones, they are the ones who caused the war, and they keep yelling: We´ll be back! 'And we were frightened back then. It was strange that we came to see this place. Then we went back home the same way through the Weitra. We arrived frozen. And I know it was one of those moments when my dad was happy we had a chance to see it. I also felt his fear that borders would close again and that we wouldn´t be able to go there again. I know my dad enjoyed this trip."

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    Nové Hrady, 13.08.2020

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I wish we never again see our neighbouring countries as enemies

Vladimír Hokr (2018)
Vladimír Hokr (2018)
photo: https://masopust-nove-hrady.webnode.cz/

Vladimír Hokr was born on 13th June 1976 in České Budějovice. He grew up in Nové Hrady, near the border zone and the Iron Curtain. After successful graduation from the Grammar School of Jan Valerián Jirsík in České Budějovice, he studied History and French language at the Faculty of Education in České Budějovice. He taught French for some time, then he worked as a guide and a delegate to a travel agency. In 2002, he ran for the City Council of Nové Hrady and became its mayor in 2006. In 2020, Vladimír Hokr lived with his wife Ivana and three children in Nové Hrady.