Trader dad was wrongfully jailed for speculating in goods
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Pavel Marek was born in Turnov on 9 April 1947. His father Josef Marek was arrested when he was in the sixth grade of primary school. The allegation was he speculated in hardware goods which he was selling successfully. The family’s house, car, goods and valuables were confiscated. The father spent 30 months in a correctional labour camp in Ostrov nad Ohří. Friends from the congregation of the Unity of the Brethren Protestant Church helped the family through the difficult time. Released from prison, the father worked in a warehouse at a glass factory. Following primary school, Pavel Marek trained for a locksmith; he was not admitted to high school despite very good grades, leaving the ninth grade with two Bs. He completed the grammar school in Turnov in the evening later on. He joined Železnobrodské sklo in 1969 as a setter as part of his military service. He served the obligatory five months in the military in Přelouč with an engineer unit. He helped build barracks and car park. He got married in 1970. He and his wife Jiřina raised a son and a daughter. In 1972 they bought a former farmstead in Všeň near Turnov and started to refurbish the house and farm. Pavel Marek made his living as a setter of large printing machines and earned extra money as a heating engineer in his spare time. After the coup in 1989, he and his wife travelled all over Europe. In 1993, he and a friend founded a company selling and repairing Husqvarna garden equipment, where he was still working at the time of filming in 2025.
