JUDr. Jan Choděra

* 1952

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  • "The first floor of the Municipal Court in Prague, to the left of the staircase, is packed with people, journalists and God knows who. Jolyon Naegele of the Voice of America was standing next to them. The biggest problem was that, on the one hand, they were convicted, of course not, because they disliked each other, but for economic activities - or illicit business back then."

  • "I went to the army on December 1, then I was in Litoměřice for, let's say, three Sundays, so when we approved the petition [condemning Charter 77], I could be there for three Sundays at most." - "And can you describe what it was like with the petition in the army?" - "Well, first of all, we were invited by the political officer, and he was an excellent man, a good man, Lieutenant Michálek, and he told us that it was wrong and that we soldiers should..." - "Dissociate ?" - "Or, well, something like that."

  • "And as for the unhappy sixty-eighth year, I basically experienced it in a similar way to everyone else. But I know for a fact who started banging on our door at that time on the Sázava, and what he said to us. I know that I was in the former Kozinka grove with Pepík Štecher. We were sitting at the table like this, maybe we had the radio on, and we were talking, and suddenly a terrible approaching rumble. We were looking out the window - first the barrel of a tank and two or three more behind them."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 19.03.2025

    (audio)
    délka: 03:18:36
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I didn‘t want to decide the fate of others, I wanted to help

Jan Choděra, Prague, 1973
Jan Choděra, Prague, 1973
zdroj: Archive of the witness

Jan Choděra was born on September 17, 1952 in Prague to Eliška and Oldřich Choděra. Jan Choděra lived a peaceful childhood alongside his older brother in Prague‘s Vinohrady district. He lived through the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in Posázaví. In 1968-1971 he studied at a general secondary school. In 1971-1976 he studied at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague. In 1976-1979 he worked as a law clerk in Chomutov in the law office of the Regional Association of Lawyers in Ústí nad Labem. Since 1980 he was a member of the Municipal Association of Lawyers in Prague, specifically in the group of juvenile lawyers. In 1986, he defended Čestmír Huňát in the Jazz Section trial. He welcomed the Velvet Revolution with enthusiasm, established a private law practice and continued to devote himself to his profession. In 2025 he lived in the Louny region.