Ing. Ivan Matějka

* 1936

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  • "I had to enlist with a combat unit in Plzeň for two full years. Mr. Havel's scout nickname was Chrobák (dung-beetle); he was sort of plump and clumsy. The soldiers and officers bullied him. There was military training one day a week. We wore uniforms, did the drill with our rifles, and they hazed us. It was always like, 'Havel, show the crawling routine!' Havel came: 'Comrade Lieutenant, student Havel here on your orders!' - 'Show me!' They made fun of him: 'Look how badly he's doing it! Havel, how do you do it?'"

  • "We sat across from each other, it was the State Security, and I thought, 'Gee, why me? What's up?' It was after New Year's Eve, and I always like to tell a lot of jokes and anecdotes, so I thought, 'I told a joke and somebody ratted me out.' He said, 'I just need to hear this from you: did you attend the midnight mass on Christmas Eve?' - 'Yes, I did.' - 'Can you tell me what the sermon was like?' I thought, 'Oh, so that's what it's about. How am I going to weasel out of this?' - 'We came late and stood all the way in the back.' '- I know that.' Someone must have known that well-known sinner Matějka was there. 'Did you hear the vicar...' and he started to read. 'Maybe something like that, but we didn't hear the whole thing.' It ended quite well for me; he didn't want me to sign anything. I realised that Vicar Polreich had to quit soon afterwards, though. He was made to leave and go to Vysočina. He was just an administrator afterwards for reading Charter 77 out loud."

  • "Daddy was a postal clerk. He was investigated by the Gestapo because he was a boy scout official. I guess you know about boy scouts. I was already a member in 1941. It was abolished by K. H. Frank's order in 1941; soldiers raided the camps and even blood was shed. My father was the boy scout treasurer and the Gestapo came to search our apartment. They went after assets, and Dad had to surrender the savings books and the cash register."

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    Jičín, 18.12.2019

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    duration: 01:24:45
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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It is important not to get involved with the wrong people

Ivan Matějka in his first role as a prince
Ivan Matějka in his first role as a prince
photo: Witness's archive

Ivan Matějka was born in Prague on 12 February 1936 but spent most of his life in Jičín. He first went to school in 1942, and sometimes came home from classes in the dark and to the sound of sirens warning of Allied aircraft overhead. As a boy, he witnessed the Gestapo searching their home. He listened to the noise and watched the flashes in the sky caused by the bombing of Dresden with his brothers in 1945. He kept secret the fact that his parents had sheltered three captured Italian officers who managed to escape as they marched through Jičín. After graduating in 1954, he studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague with Václav Havel as his classmate for two years. The two also met during their mandatory military service in Plzeň. He spent the majority of his career at ČSAD Jičín. In 1968, he attended the funeral of two fellow citizens who were shot by a drunk Polish soldier who came to Jičín as part of the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops. On Christmas Eve 1977, he heard the text of Charter 77 at midnight mass during parish priest František Polreich’s sermon. He was then contacted by the State Security Service at work and questioned about the sermon. In 1990, he ran for the Jičín City Council for the Civic Forum and became the first post-1989 mayor of the town. He and his wife Božena had a son and a daughter. He was a scout and an amateur actor. He lived in Jičín in 2019.