Karel Žižka

* 1950

  • “I continued working in an X-ray hospital in Nový Jičín. Every morning my colleagues and I laid down the requisition table. We had the requests divided according to departments, as traumatology, kidneys, digestive tract. And one lovely day I noticed that on one request JUDr. Veverka was written. I said to my colleagues, 'Please give it to me. I want to enjoy this one.´ I went to the waiting room and called Mr. Veverka. He got up and walked into the room. I asked him to undress his waist and lie down on the table. He came for a kidney examination. I asked him if he remembered me. He said that he did not remember. So I reminded him of the trial in Nový Jičín. He began to turn red. And I told him a few words that I have waited a long time to say: 'Finally it is over for you, the communists. It took a long time, but I'm glad I lived to see it and you're not going to hurt anyone that you're this little now.´ I normally began to talk to him in an informal way.

  • “On February 3, the stags from Ostrava arrived for me in Olomouc, saying that anti-state printed materials were found during a house search at Pepa Zdráhal. Pepa admitted it was borrowed from me and I had it from Tigrid. So they came for me to explain the matter. I was taken to the regional administration of secret police. There is prison on the other. I went to the interrogation right away. A Major Oramus interrogated me until the evening. He presented me with posters, told me about the broken window and the broken Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Union. At first, I tried to deny it all, but they already knew everything.”

  • “About a month after the occupation, a member of the secret police from Nový Jičín began to bring Russian officers to his apartment from the Frenštát crew. Two, three, four together with their wives came to him. Once in September 1968 we were with the boys in the gym. Basically we agreed that he was a first-class collaborator and that he had to be made aware of it in some way. I think it was my idea to throw the rocks in his windows when the Russians were there again, and that we would make the discussion a little unpleasant for them. We did as agreed. We were five or six boys. Everyone took a stone or a cube in their hands, and as we said 'now', we threw it into the windows. The glass creaked and we scattered. Then we learned that the police and dogs arrived immediately. But they didn't catch us then. It wasn't until 1970, when other things were being investigated, that someone confessed to it and it came to light.”

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    v Ostravě, 16.01.2020

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    duration: 02:49:43
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I do not regret months spent in communist prison. Rather, I regret that I have done no more harm to the regime

Karel Žižka around 1968
Karel Žižka around 1968
photo: Archiv Karla Žižky

Karel Žižka was born on 12 January 1950 in Nový Jičín. He graduated from the High School. After graduation he started to study at X-ray laboratory in Olomouc. After the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, he co-organized various protests and minor resistance activities. On the first anniversary of Jan Palach’s death in 1970, he distributed leaflets commemorating his legacy and calling for resistance against non-freedom. He was arrested and sentenced to seven months in prison. He first served his sentence in Ostrava remand prison and after his sentence he was imprisoned in Horní Slavkov. After his release, he worked as a machine lubrication handyman in Nový Jičín’s Tonak company. Later he worked as an ambulance nurse in the hospital. He completed his studies remotely and then worked as an X-ray laboratory technician in hospitals in Nový Jičín and Odry for more than twenty years. He was fully rehabilitated in free conditions. In 2017, the Czech government awarded him as a participant in the resistance and resistance to communism.