Jan Vevera

* 1970

  • “What did we talk about? (about the mission in Afghanistan. Could you tell me more about the medical problems you had to treat most often?) Sure. Diarrhea. And eye inflammation. This is what the people most frequently suffer from. There is an airport near Kabul, and in Kabul there is no sewage system at all. The excrements just dry and then get in the air. When wind begins to blow, it is immediately followed by an epidemic of diarrhea and eye inflammation. This happened after every desert storm. And when we arrived there, in spring, that hundred-day wind started, I don’t remember when exactly, and these problems occurred most often.”

  • “I have always wanted to pursue the medical profession. For me, it was pretty obvious. Štětí was a strange town. All the people worked in one factory, which is not so common. I don’t remember how many inhabitants lived in Štětí at that time, like five thousand or so, and all of them worked in this one big factory, in SEPAP Štětí (a paper-mill). Around five fifteen or five thirty one third of the town would wake up, march through the gates of the factory, and around three p-m. they would go back, because they rotated with the second shift. And the second shift would make place for the third around 10 p.m. You could see masses of people streaming through the town, and I was so much opposed to the idea that I should join them, it was so repulsive to me.”

  • “(Should Czechoslovakia of 1938 have defended herself against the Nazi Germany, the take-over of the Sudetenland or the occupation in March 1939?) I have been thinking about it for a while. If I had said, being a soldier now, that we should not have defended ourselves, the army would have been entirely good for nothing …(Smiling) I believe at least the soldiers should hold the opinion that we should have defended ourselves. I have no opinion of my own in this respect. I have not lived through those times. If we had fought, there would have been surely more casualties. But as I have stated at the beginning of our interview, a state, which stops defending itself, is bound to perish in the course of time. So we shall see. Our children shall see in a hundred years´ time. But one thing is certain – the fact that a man is able to defend himself, is a basic prerequisite for survival in any environment. I think that one should not surrender when threatened.”

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    Praha, 03.09.2008

    (audio)
    duration: 01:08:36
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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You will find the answer everywhere around us, and within us as well Nature and your own body fights infection

Jan Vevera in troop training
Jan Vevera in troop training
photo: soukr. archiv Jana Vevery

Jan Vevera was born August 21st, 1970 in Roudnice nad Labem. He grew up in Štětí, a smaller town near Mělník. During the Communist era, nearly every citizen of that town was employed in the SEPAP, a local paper-mill. From his childhood, Jan recalls memories of streams of workers who flocked in front of the factory every morning at 5 a.m., and then the afternoon crowds leaving the factory for local pubs. “Perhaps it is from here, from my childhood years and part-time student jobs in SEPAP, that my love and respect for education, freedom and libertinism stems from”, says Vevera, a graduate of psychiatry at a medical faculty. His travels brought him to China and the USA, for several months he worked aboard an Alaskan fishing vessel. After completing his studies, he left with the humanitarian organization People in Need for a mission in war-ravaged Kosovo, where he met Czech soldiers working in a field-hospital there. This, as he confesses, was a pleasant surprise to him, because during the Communist regime, he had been accustomed to perceive the military and law-enforcement profession as something working “against the nation.” As Vevera tells us, there are about 1,200 psychiatrists in the Czech Republic, and they mostly know one another. One of them asked Vevera whether he would be willing to serve in the army in the military psychiatrist department. Vevera was hesitant to leave his research; however, when he was assured he could continue his academic work and he would be assigned a “field-hospital,” he put on the army camouflage. Shortly after his initial training in 2007 he was sent to a mission on Afghanistan. As a medic, we asked him what issues did he encounter most often during his mission.  He tells us that diarrhea and eye inflammation were rampant.