Miroslav Jeník

* 1946

  • "Mr. Jeník, on the bulletin board you actually had there and what was the sign on the septic tank, as you said?" – “It was on the bottom of the septic tank, someone had to report on us. Luboš engraved a swastika there, a star and the inscription Day of Shame, August 21, 1968, Day of Shame." - "Would it still be an unfinished septic tank? Empty?” - “Unfinished. Does the septic tank work at all? A hotel was to be built next to the caves. Sewerage was done. But it didn't work out." - "So there was the sign in the septic tank and on the bulletin board you had that you ended up questioning because of it?" - "It was all the newspapers of the year 1968. As long as it could still be written before censorship was introduced, until the end of 1968, I think. Then it couldn't be. There was something from the Reporter."

  • "And then when the bachelors got drunk, I don't say everyone, just some of them. Hartmann was so solid, he talked to me too. When they were drunk, they went to the hole. As we had barracks, there was a hole (solitary) right above it, and when one of the prisoners did not do his homework or had disciplinary problems, he was locked in a hole. There was a bunk bed, concrete, it closed for a day and the prisoner had to stand there. There was less food, drink, and only soup, if anything at all. I don't know. And so they beat them that the next day, when they were seen because they had to go out, they were really beaten. The roar could already be heard. These were the dungeons, and they took one prisoner, and three went up to him, and lathered him there. Nothing could help him."

  • "We had to retreat down, and now someone had broken the shop window there, probably in the middle of the street there was the shop. And there was alcohol, bottles, some better ones, and they started looting it there. They were probably dark-skinned people, probably gypsies. Luboš flew into it, the shop window was completely glazed, and he started cursing at them and drove them out. So they gathered and ran away. The next or third day, they wrote in the newspapers that we had stolen the shops, it was true that they had been robbed. But who stole them? We who were against them, we were not. They pushed us all the way down, there was a shed. Opposite was a dining room, in the Danube Palace. They couldn't push us further, the militia started firing signal pistols into the ground. It was reflected, and I know that they made an explanation at the battenhouse. And one rocket flew into the dining room, and there were such heavy felt curtains. We knocked them to the ground or they might have caught on."

  • "They drove into the wall. The tank, the car, exploded, and the oil and Vaseline canisters they had began to fly through the air. Then the tank on the lift slammed, flew into the air and got down on the asphalt. I figured out why it was burning like that. We immediately found out it was gasoline. The Russians drove on petrol, they only had petrol cars, they did not run on diesel, they had only petrol. The factory on the right started to burn, it caught on the left as well. As he splashed gasoline, he splashed from the tank on the tow to our car. I backed up to the bridge. Ruda Šourek jumped out of the car, out of the Fiat, I was already standing. Ruda shouted, 'Now they're going to shoot us, now they're going to shoot us!' I said, 'Don't be silly, don't be silly!' We didn't find him until we went home. I hurried back and forth toward the stream in a Fiat. There on the sidewalk, partly on the road and partly on the sidewalk, was a woman with a bag. I still think it was a postman, someone told me no, I don't know. She was on fire, her hair was on fire, she had her hair done and a bag. Stockings were burning on her, her skirt on the back. So, I shouted at my brother, 'Hurry up the blanket!' So we quickly threw a blanket at her and shouted, 'Ambulance, quick ambulance!'

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    Liberec, 23.07.2020

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    duration: 01:55:40
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He extinguished the burning woman during the invasion of the occupiers. The Communists repaid him by imprisonment

Miroslav Jeník with his son in autumn 1970 shortly before going to prison
Miroslav Jeník with his son in autumn 1970 shortly before going to prison
photo: studio Paměti národa

Miroslav Jeník was born on May 18, 1946 in Vrchlabí. In 1960, he moved with his parents and brother to Bozkov in the Semily region. He graduated from the then twelve-grade school, but did not graduate. From 1965 to 1967 he completed basic military service, where he joined the Communist Party. In June 1968 he married his wife Milada. On August 21, 1968, he experienced the tragic accident of a Soviet tanker during the transfer of an army convoy in Desná in the Jizera Mountains. Together with his brother Ladislav saved a burning woman. They themselves got injured. Under the influence of the Warsaw Pact invasion of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, he got rid of the Communist Party’s ID. However, it was not removed from the register of party members until 1972. At that time, he was working on the modifications of the Bozkov caves and used the public notice board with his friends for anti-occupation agitation. In February 1969 he took part in protests against the meeting of communist officials with representatives of the occupying armies in Semily. On 21 August 1969 he took part in anti-occupation protests in Liberec. In October 1970, his son was born. In December 1970, he went to prison, where he was sent to the Regional Court in Hradec Králové for ten months due to opposition to the occupation of Czechoslovakia. He served his sentence in its entirety, mostly in the prison in Bělušice, North Bohemia. In 1988, he got through police patrols for the funeral of dissident Pavel Wonka in Vrchlabí. After 1989, he did business with his son in a carpentry shop. He received compensation for injuries in the accident in Desná and for imprisonment during the totalitarian regime. In 2020 he lived in Bozkov.