“The regime demanded that you learn German, and not only German, but the classes of physics and mathematics were in the German language as well. The teachers basically had to learn the basic terms overnight, and the textbooks were exchanged immediately, of course. I remember that the textbooks included a line stating that the printing had been provided by the Czech Education Association. All this had to be blackened out by ink or cut out so that no remarks about anything Czech would remain there. Everything already had to be adapted to the coming regime.”
“We completed our studies in 1952, but unfortunately an order came to the school from the ministry of education that non-party members who do not have any potential for the future are to be advised to leave the school. The way it happened was as it was sometimes done and perhaps still is: during summer vacation, when everybody is on holiday - there was a two-month holiday in schools - but one is still obliged to report back to work on September 1st. And on August 25th I received a letter summoning me to the dean’s office. I was told there that since I did not have any potential, they would terminate my job contract. The only thing they guaranteed was that they would find me another job.”
“In the time after 1968, one ambassador who worked in Geneva in Switzerland, he was a Slovak, negotiated with the WHO, the World Health Organization, that the first research institute for the environment would be established in Czechoslovakia. The organization would provide funding and material support for five years, and this centre was to be established, with branch offices in Prague and Košice, but the headquarters was to be in Bratislava. At that time there was a public job contest, I did not know about it at all, but my colleague, a very good friend of mine, who was older than me and who served as a kind of my mentor, he was a Party member, but a good man, and he found out in the Rudé Právo newspaper, which was the official paper of the Party, that this international research centre was being established and that one could apply for a position. We were both from Prague and we both applied, but the job contest was nationwide.”
Ing. Vladimír Zdeněk Prchlík, CSc., was born on March 22, 1929 in Prague. He lived with his parents in the recently constructed Spořilov neighbourhood and in 1935 he began attending the local co-educated elementary school. When he was five years old, Vladimír became a member of the Sokol sports organization and he continues to be a Sokol to this day. During the Protectorate era he enrolled in the grammar school in Ohradní Street in Prague-Michle where classes were held under the supervision of the occupying authorities. After the war he began to study at the College of Electrical Engineering of Charles University, which had established its new campus in Prague-Dejvice. He worked as a senior lecturer at the department of production and distribution of electric energy under professor Řezníček. As a ‘non-partisan with no potential for the future,’ Vladimír was expelled from the school in 1952 and he was assigned to work in the state-owned institute Chemoprojekt. After six years he got transferred to Kovoprojekt. After 1968, he and his colleague succeeded in a contest for job positions in the recently established Research Institute for the Environment, which had its headquarters in Bratislava and branch offices in Prague and Košice. Since he was proficient in English and German, Vladimír accompanied foreign experts during their visits to Czechoslovak companies. He participated in a two-month internship in England and in Canada, which had a significant impact on his professional growth. After his return he completed his academic degree ‘Candidate of Sciences’ (CSc.) and he graduated from the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava where he then continued working. When the Ministry of Environment was being founded after November 1989, he accepted the offer of his friend, minister Bedřich Moldan, and he began working in the ministry’s department for foreign cooperation. Before the Czech Republic joined the European Union, he had been translating the associated entry documents, especially the technical ones. He worked at the ministry until his retirement. He focused on translating and interpreting. Vladimír was a member of the Czechoslovak Association of Legionaries. He lived in Prague. Vladimír Zdeněk Prchlík died on August 13, 2022.
