PhDr. Ilja Šedo

* 1951

  • "Nevertheless, the regime still seemed to be very strong and it suppressed any kind of resistance very strictly. It was clear that as long as they had the support of the Russian army, which was still here, there was no chance for a change. I don't know if anybody at that time thought that it would ever end. We didn't think it would. We were convinced that it was for life. We basically made our peace with it. We accepted our fate of being the losers and the traitors till the end of our lives."

  • "I used to go to work by taking the tram till Hvězda [cinema] and then I walked across the park. Nowadays there is a body of water, but back then there was nothing there. But there were steps that I think are still there today. To get to work I had to walk past Parkán, because our workplace was in a brewery museum. So that was probably the shortest way. As I was going up the steps, I saw two guys standing there. That's when I got a little anxious. I kept walking. I climbed the stairs and wanted to go to the sidewalk. One of them came up to me and introduced himself and said I'd go with them. They had a typical black Volga. They put me in the car and drove me to Bory [prison]. There they just put me in a cell in one of the wings. They left me there alone for a couple of hours and then the interrogations started. The first interrogation lasted maybe twelve hours. I think they picked me up after six in the morning and let me out after seven o'clock or so. I know it was dark when I got home."

  • "It could have been around ten o'clock. Behind Kasejovice, in the woods, there was a small company, where the locals were doing something, but I don't know what. But suddenly we saw all the employees running across the field back to Kasejovice. We thought, 'Oh God, what is happening? Is there a fire somewhere or something?' We still didn't know anything. It took about an hour, but suddenly we saw tanks coming across the field. We were just watching them like crazy and thinking: 'What are they doing here? There's no exercise'."

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    Plzeň, 01.03.2022

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    duration: 01:39:27
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
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I tried to live my life in a way that I could look everyone in the face, and never have to be ashamed of anything

Ilja Šedo secretly photographed by a State Security Service member in March 1984
Ilja Šedo secretly photographed by a State Security Service member in March 1984
photo: Contemporary witness's archive

Ilja Šedo was born on May 5, 1951 in Mariánské Lázně to a Russian emigrant Antonín Šedo. However, he spent a significant part of his life in Pilsen. When he commenced his studies at a secondary school of civil engineering, the Prague Spring just came, and he was expecting significant changes. The events of August 21, 1968 came as a shock to him, same as to many others. He no longer trusted the Party and did not think it would ever change. By coincidence, however, he joined the Borderline Guard at the beginning of normalization, specifically the Debrník company near Železná Ruda. Two years later he returned to the West Bohemian city, but at the time he started to face lengthy health issues. At the age of 22, he received a harsh diagnosis - multiple sclerosis, which he has been fighting all his life. Despite his health problems, he decided to stand up to the communist regime and he signed the Charter 77. Because of this, the StB (State Security Service) then terrorized him for several years, until the fall of the regime. After 1989, he graduated in library science at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University and continued to work at the West Bohemian Museum in Pilsen, which helped him a lot with finding a job when he first fell ill. In 2022 he is still working there as a librarian.