I’ve been in constant trouble with the police because of my long hair.
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Petr Šimánek was born in Ústí nad Labem on 23 September 1949. His father was a clerk and his mother worked in a telephone exchange. His parents were not politically involved in any way. Having completed primary school, Šimánek apprenticed as a locksmith but was expelled because of his long hair and non-conformist behaviour. He was employed from 1964 onwards. Because of his long hair, he was in constant trouble with the police, attempted suicide three times when he was about to be forcibly cut, and ended up in a mental asylum each time. In 1967 he experienced an organised police manhunt in Ústí nad Labem targeting ‘longhairs’. He left the country in 1969 after the August 1968 occupation of Czechoslovakia. He lived in the local squatter community in Hamburg. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1970 and truck with the Ústí nad Labem municipal services company. Two years later, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison for sedition and distribution of narcotics. He served his sentence in prisons in Litoměřice and Bory, working in a ceramics factory. After release and returning to Ústí nad Labem, he helped disseminate samizdat literature and signed Charter 77 in February 1978. Because of the Charter, he experienced police persecution, home searches, surveillance and summons for interrogation. Pressured by the StB, he eventually decided to leave Czechoslovakia. The state revoked his Czechoslovak citizenship and Šimánek left for Vienna on 16 January 1979. He earned a living in manual jobs and did not interact much with the Czech community because he was afraid of the communist intelligence collaborators. He moved from Austria to the Netherlands in 1985, returning to Vienna two years later. He decided to return to Czechoslovakia in October 1990. He worked the public transit company in Ústí nad Labem until retirement. In 2016, Petr Šimánek received an award for participation in the anti-communist resistance.
