Jindřich Polák

* 1947

  • "It is impossible to say that they appeared there too often, but there was an inspection. She was also one of the organizers, because you couldn't get them yourself. There were people hiding in the organizers category who could then say something somewhere. Whether it was tearing tickets, or selling them, or standing there as a fireman. I don't remember the day, the year, the date, but there were two or three guys who showed up, wearing leather coats, hats. We were called the Hells Angels by then. They came in, so we stopped playing. 'Who's the manager here?' They called me, we went to the back of the dressing room. There they spread a 100+1 magazine in front of me, I think it was a monthly, and I read in there, still without my glasses at the time, that the Hells Angels was an organization in America with a big question mark, that they used fascist symbols, they dressed up in leather uniforms, they rode motorcycles, and God knows what they did. The regime didn't like it. That means we all read it. There we agreed that it was passable without Hells - and we were already called Angels, that is Angels, no longer Hell's Angels, but good Angels."

  • "They even tormented the cleaners there. A woman who knew water, rag, bucket and broom was given a pointer and a liberation struggle in Biafra. She didn't even know where to point where Biafra is supposed to be. Then some of the older, braver people spoke up: 'Please leave her alone, you can see she doesn't know anything' That was a terrible time."

  • "Mostly about my brother-in-law, or when he came back later, if I haven't noticed here in Jaromer, in Josefov. He picked up smoothly, brother-in-law was already here, picked up his kind of work smoothly. I was not a member of anything, of any positive or negative groups, I had nothing to give him, I had nothing to say to him. I didn't work in any cell, I didn't even know about any cell. It's unpleasant and you are not surprised by people like me, maybe he was an artist, a musician, like Magor Jirous from Plastic People. They deliberately opened a file on him, even though he never said anything to them, he was never at Bartolomějská. Now, after the revolution, it's revealed, and it's written there. Now explain it. They put you in there on purpose, maybe to cause you some trouble. Anyway, I put it behind me. Whoever listens to me will either understand or not."

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    Hradec Králové, 11.04.2022

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    duration: 01:55:48
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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Racing club Mír forced to play rock Angels in dederon shirts

Jindřich Polák in 1961
Jindřich Polák in 1961
photo: Archiv pamětníka

Jindřich Polák was born on 27 November 1947 in Jaroměř. His father Jindřich Polák was a trained electrician and his mother Vlasta, born Vávrová, worked as a seamstress and later sold in a drugstore. He had two older sisters. He finished primary school in Jaroměř. He liked sports, he loved skiing, hockey and especially football. He studied mechanical engineering in Nové Město nad Metují. Because of a dispute over his long hair, he finished school in Hradec Králové. He graduated in 1971 while working. In the sixties he played and sang in the big beat band Hells Angels, where he also worked as a bandleader. He experienced annual performances in front of a committee. Since 1966, he worked as a civilian employee for the military unit 1117 in Josefov, first in the warehouse and since 1970 in the purchasing department. He experienced absurd situations, for example, when he drove a bus with a rucksack on his back to collect goods ordered for the army. In August 1968, he went to discussions with Polish soldiers whose tanks were stationed on the main road in Jaroměř for several days. In the early 1980s, his brother-in-law emigrated to Switzerland, but returned six months later. He was interrogated at work, and then Jan Vašata, a member of the military counterintelligence, came to him and asked him about various things. From 1983 onwards, he kept a volume on the witness in which he was marked as an agent. In 1986 he closed the file. He mentioned that Jindřich Polák had supplied only oral information, on the basis of which no person had been prosecuted. The witness did not recall signing a promise of cooperation. In 1989, he photographically recorded the general strike in Hradec Králové. In 1993, he retired to the private sphere. Since injuring his knee in 1982, he worked in his spare time on the photographic chronicle of the town of Jaroměř, where he and his wife still lived in 2022.