Miroslav Vošahlík

* 1943

  • “I remember it very well because on that 21 August [1968 - ed.] I had the radio switched on before five in the morning. There were Antonovs flying over our part of Prague in 60 to 80 second intervals. So I knew we were being occupied. I ran to my parents’ place, they were still asleep. I woke them up, they had no idea what was going on. Dad played me a fool when I said the Ruskies were here. He told me they’d been here since forty-five. I said they were occupying us right now and that they were here with tanks. I carried on to Motorlet, we didn’t even change into our work clothes. We gathered in this one yard, one of the managers declared that the situation was dire and that we had to leave to go. He used a sentence from Švejk [a famous Czech satire of World War I by Jaroslav Hašek - trans.]: ‘We’ll meet at six after the war at the Chalice [U Kalicha, a pub - trans.].’ Walter’s was a big plant, so I don’t know what went on in the other sections, I don’t know. We upped and left. My wife worked at the Central Bohemian Regional National Committee in Smíchov at the time. I rushed in to where she was and said: ‘Come on, we’re going home.’ Our son was at her parents’ home outside of Prague. The comrade director didn’t want to let her go. I told him that if he won’t let her leave, she’ll leave anyway. So we went. Public transportation was coming to a halt, so we went on foot via Palacký Bridge. We could hear shooting from the Smíchov side [of the river] - they were shooting at what is now the ministry of health. There was some office there at the time, I don’t know which, and the Ruskies mistook it for something else, so they shot it up, like the Museum [on Wenceslav Square - trans.]. So we went across Palacký Bridge under fire, and we dragged ourselves all the way to Pankrác.”

  • “My wife and I were in written contacte, and my visa had almost expired when she wrote: “Look, I won’t hold it against you if you do what you have planned. Carry on with your ambitions...’ I still have that letter. So every month I went to the German police, where they extended my visa by a month for five marks. I have to note one more important thing - neither my wife, nor myself, not even as a couple - we didn’t request political asylum in Germany. We were there as long-term tourists. No one pushed me to do this or that, it was all my decision. Every month as a foreigner, I underwent a compulsory medical check in Germany, and every month I requested my visa to be extended.”

  • “When you’re a toolmaker, your job is just the finish - to assemble and make the tool. You have at your disposal a lathe operator, a miller, a hardener, a sharpener, etc. When I entered the pressing shop, I could avail myself of a lathe, grinders, and I only had to rely on the services of hardeners and some specialists, depending on what equipment I was missing. And so for several years the way I worked was basically that the tool shop issued an invoice to the pressing shop, it was all just administration. After two or three years I became a core employee of the so-called Guild No. 4, which included the pressing shop. And this guild comprised all the amazing workshops at Walter’s that were interesting in some way - the smithies, seat shops, joiners’ shops, hardening facilities... All these amazing crafts were part of this guild. I had a broad scope of possible cooperation. I really enjoyed the craft, mainly because I was good at it.”

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    Hroznová ul., Praha , 07.03.2016

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    Hroznová ul., Praha , 07.03.2016

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My wife would have understood if I’d stayed in emigration. But I came back

Vošahlík Miroslav
Vošahlík Miroslav
photo: dobové foto: archiv pamětníka, současné foto: Eye Direct natáčení Post Bellum

Miroslav Vošahlík was born on 20 March 1943 into the family of a relatively well-to-do dentist in Prague 4 (or Prague 14, as it was then). Besides his main employment, his father also moonlighted, but he was informed on in 1956 and ended up in jail. The witness wanted to follow his father’s footsteps, and so he applied to a secondary school of dental technicians; however, he was expelled after a month because of his father’s conviction. His brother put in a good word for him with the headmaster of his school, and so in October 1956 Miroslav Vošahlík began training as a toolmaker at ČKD Stalingrad. His good results caused him to be taken up by Motorlet - the Jan Šverma works (previously the Walter Works, or Walter’s, a pioneer in car, motorcycle, and aircraft engine production). The Soviet invasion of August 1968 came after ten years in this career, and Miroslav Vošahlík prepared for carefully deliberated emigration. In 1969 he and his wife went to Germany on a student’s visa. However, his wife had to return to Czechoslovakia. Germany was only to be the first step of their journey to their final destination of the USA, where the Vošahlíks had distant relatives. However, in summer 1970 the witness decided to avail himself of the amnesty offered to emigrants to return to their families in Czechoslovakia. He also tried to take up his job at Motorlet, but he was fired after a quarter of a year because of his stay in Germany. He earned a living as a floor layer and decorator until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. He retired with a disability pension in 1993.