Ctibor Šindar

* 1955

  • "Those soldiers took me to the railway station and there they locked me up in a tiny room. Around midnight, some soldier with a typewriter came. He started asking a plenty of things which I answered and he typed. Then they let me sleep and early in the morning, they sat me in a car and drove me to the children's residential home. I was stationed there as a normal child without parents. I did not know anything [about my family]. I had to adapt somehow so I did what the boys there did. Nobody told me anything. Then, suddenly, some journalists came, interviewed me and then went away. Then the school year started so they transferred me to another residential home where I was supposed to go to school. I was there for about five days and they took me back to the home in Vodňany. The day after, they told me that I will go to join my parents. I was very happy."

  • "Our little girl was born. And with the two-year-old girl, we travelled to Czech Republic. And I liked it there. The change that took place in those four years was stunning. Czech Republic threw away the veil of dirt and saddness and everything visible was suddenly clean and beautiful. Karlovy Vary were totally different. The houses became colourful. In Žatec, in Louny and in Prague, I saw the enormous change. And I really liked how the Czechs are such... as if they slept all winter long and suddenly spring came and everything went to bloom. Wonderful. I really liked it and so did my wife. So we went back to Venezuela and suddenly my wife called and said: 'I'm selling everything, we're going to Europe and we'll live there.'"

  • "Where is my home? That's a question I ask myself almost every day. I'm a child of the world, I can't say otherwise. We lived in Austria, in Switzerland, in Venezuela and in Czech Republic. And it's hard to say where my home is. Both countries [Venezuela and Czech Republic] gave a lot and took a lot away. But my home is both in Czech Republic and in Venezuela. I cannot say in any way which is better and which is worse. That's nonsense."

  • "All of them who were at the railing jumped under and started to run. Father followed them. But I looked at the officer who pulled out a weapon and started shooting in the air. I stood standing. I couldn't move at all. I looked how two soldiers with submachine guns run towards my family on the left side of the road. Maybe six, seven or eight metres from them, they started the fire and I just looked how they kept shooting at my family. I saw how almost all of them got to the Austrian side and hid behind some car. My brother was shot in the leg and fell. The soldier who shot him slid on cobblestones - there was such a sort of paving - and his gun fell. Brother returned one step and took his gun and father screamed at him from the other side: 'Let it be! They will kill you!' So he threw it away and started to run again. The guardsman who lay on the ground grabbed the gun and continued to fire, even to the Austrian side."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 05.02.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:44:35
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha, 26.03.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 31:48
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Chtěl jsem jim poděkovat za to, jak špatně stříleli

Passport photo
Passport photo
photo: archiv pamětníka

Ctibor Šindar was born on the 20th of May of 1955 in Venezuela as the youngest child in the family of a Czech joiner Karel Šindar and a Polish, Olga Mirková. Ctibor spent a considerable part of his childhood travelling between Europe and Venezuela. The family lived for some time in Switzerland and Austria as well. In 1961, Ctibor and the family were arrested when entering Czechoslovakia. The whole family was held for a month in the Ruzyně prison. After their release, the family lived in Třeskonice and in the Jáchymov are. In August 1967, Karel Šindar along with his wife, children and a baby granddaughter escaped in dramatic circumstances across the border crossing to Austria. Ctibor was intercepted and watched how the customs officers shoot at his family. He spent the month after his family’s escape in various childcare facilities in Czechoslovakia. With the help of the Red Cross and journalists, he managed to get to Austria where he met his family again; they escaped only with wounds. They moved to Venezuela together and Ctibor started to work in the family joiner workshop. In Venezuela, he married twice. He has one child from each of the mariages, older son and younger daughter. In 1996, he and his second wife moved to Czech Republic where they still live.