Václav Toužimský

* 1935

  • "He rolled it there, of course, it started to fall on him, the others remained standing, then some of them overtook him that they deviated from it, I don't know how they coordinated themselves, whether, through the radio, I don't know all that. Then when ambulances arrived there ... because it actually demolished part of one and part of the other houses, it fell onto people who were watching what was going on on both sides."

  • When the ambulances arrived, they were still" little ones "with small crosses, so he just backed out and took it to the ambulance and stopped at the tank, which already had the number 321. He had 314, the one that broke it, and there he stopped due to perforation of his canisters, which it carried as a reserve, on the tank, which stopped there, he smashed it into it, but only destroyed the canister. When he drove further, in the same moment when he climbed out of the peephole, he aimed his gun on the people - who immediately hid to the alignments behind the pillars and the square was empty."

  • "So tanks started driving at night, they woke me up. So I thought, I'll get on the scaffolding, I'll take a picture. When dawn started, because it was in August, it was soon light, so I took a picture of them and hid. And they drove on, and they drove even further, and they drove even further. Well, then I picked up my daughter, took her to my grandmother and went to work myself. And I wanted to show the guys what was going on on Nejedlého Street. But it was already known about everything, it was already known through the radio. "

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    Hradec Králové, 20.07.2020

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His photos from the occupation of Liberec traveled the world

Václav Toužimský, the turn of the 60s and 70s of the 20th century
Václav Toužimský, the turn of the 60s and 70s of the 20th century
photo: archiv Václava Toužimského

Václav Toužimský was born on May 8, 1933, in Liberec. From 1950 to 1952 he studied the double major in photochemistry - photography. After that, he worked all his life as a photographer in Liberec. In 1968, he took a famous series of pictures from the beginning of the Warsaw Pact invasion in Liberec, including a well-known picture of the demolished arcade on Liberec Square. In 1969, members of the StB confiscated negatives with incriminated images at the Fotocentrum in Liberec. The witness was not allowed to take pictures for some time, but his director kept him in the team of photographers. In his free time, he received several awards for his photographs from the Liberec region and the city of Liberec. He has married twice and has two daughters. Today, he has five grandchildren from both wives. He is currently retired and lives happily with his wife in Liberec.