Jaromír Vicher

* 1962

  • "In the air for sure. After a man, hard to say. I can't say, I was twenty then. Of course, from today's point of view, I'll tell you - no, I would never shoot. But that's bullshit. Because as soon as it turned out that I didn't shoot on purpose, Sabinov threatened me at the time. Because we followed combat orders to protect the state border of the Czech [Slovak] Republic. So, no one would excuse us if a violation was found. I don't know, probably in the air, I can say today. And after man, I don't know, hard to say. I've never been a good shooter at a shooting range anyway."

  • “In September ‘83, it was warm, we were sitting at Závora at the Travní cesta station and we heard [the sound of a burner]. So we looked, nothing anywhere. We lightened it there with the headlights that were on the Závora. Nothing anywhere and again after a while [burner sound]. Only then did he come - because the grassy road was in such a hollow and towards that Zlom station and in the direction of Laa [an der Thaya] it was a bit uphill. So, we noticed that a balloon was flying there and it occasionally ignited the flames. I remember his bike hanging there, I see it like today. So, of course the announcement, no one wanted to shoot, they did not shoot. And by the time it got somewhere, he was already in Austria. Of course, we got in the car and drove. He flew between the wires and through the state border and got to the section of the company Březí, where it was 60 meters to Austria, in that short track. And there was already the town of Laa [an der] Thaya, where he landed somewhere. We saw how it landed, we could see how the flames were lower and lower. And he was there!”

  • "That they sprayed them with water, that somebody…" Take it that the boys were nineteen, twenty. And they said to them, 'Beat them.' And if you give someone power, they will use it at that moment. I doubt anybody of those riot policemen would… It was either a school emergency department, or it was a Prague police school, or how it was called. These were the boys who either came from the military service and did basic police training, or they were the boys who were there at the military service. It was also done this way. Graduates and non-graduates. As graduates, we went to Zastávka near Brno, and those who did not have a high school diploma went to Brno at a baton."

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    Znojmo, 05.04.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 02:01:31
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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When one slams, another one slams. And then it goes along

Jaromír Vicher in the military service (1981–1983)
Jaromír Vicher in the military service (1981–1983)
photo: archive of the witness

Jaromír Vicher was born on March 17, 1962 in Nové Město na Moravě. Shortly after his birth, he moved with his parents to Žďár nad Sázavou, where he lived until he was 19 years old. His father Jaromír worked as a constructor in the foundries of Žďár nad Sázavou, his mother Jaroslava worked as a nurse. He attended primary school in Žďár and trained as a metalworker. In 1981, after three months at the Žďas engineering factory, a call-up came. He served in the basic military service as a driver at the 14th Border Company in Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou. After returning to civilian life in 1983, he started working for the Public Security and served in Dejvice, Prague. He experienced the Velvet Revolution, or the demonstrations during the year 1989, in the State Security uniform on Wenceslas Square. After the November coup, he continued to serve in the State Security (the Czech Police since 1991), first in Mělník and then in Znojmo. At the time of the filming of the interview (2022), Jaromír Vicher lived in Tasovice near Znojmo and still worked for the Znojmo police.