Petr Goldmann

* 1955

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  • "In 1989, few people were actually convinced that the regime would fall, even though in retrospect it may seem clear that it could not have turned out any other way. Our communists held a firm line. At the time, when we wanted to see a groundbreaking Soviet Georgian film called Atonement, there was always a one-minute talk from a tape recorder in Karlovy Vary before the film about how we should understand the film. That the film does not criticize the political situation at the moment, or any political leaders at the moment. So just imagine the absurd scene when I go to the cinema - apparently they couldn't not release the film, or the communists couldn't ban it, they didn't dare, but they made a nice interpretation of it so that a viewer wouldn't be confused, so that perhaps he wouldn't accidentally think something. So the 'perestroika years' passed, at least in Karlovy Vary, again in the region that was a 'barrage of peace and socialism'."

  • "They perceived it, I would say, in line with their personalities. First of all, as a danger to my possible studies and work, because it was actually very soon after the communist checks when my mother was expelled, which was the worst party punishment - a party member who is expelled is never accepted back by the party. Dad got a lighter punishment - he was crossed out. And this was a punishment that allowed, if one repented enough, that sometime in the future one could return to the bosom of the native party. But it was clear, it was such a time, I guess I would say dark ages now, when one knew that the state power could do anything it wanted. So it was dangerous in that sense, and that's why my parents perceived it and were not happy that I was in this group. Daddy characterized it beautifully when he said to me during one of our conversations on the subject, 'The church won't feed you'. So he was kind of pragmatic about it. Whereas Mummy felt much more ideological about it. She was convinced that ours was a sort of Catholic activity, that it was therefore against her beliefs and that I shouldn't slip on this slippery slope. She emphasized to me, for example, that I can believe in God, but I don't have to be in a church for that."

  • "My dad started studying, or rather enrolled in university studies in Prague in 1939, after graduating from secondary school, and he experienced the whole drama around Opletal and 17 November, when the universities were closed, so he returned to Moravské Budějovice at that time. There was a bookshop of Mr. Tala in Moravské Budějovice. Mr. Tala created there a space for meeting over books, and most importantly, it was a space where people who were involved in the resistance met. At that time, as far as I know, my father was distributing some anti-Nazi leaflets. For that he was imprisoned in six months, I think it was '40, sometime in the summer. He was taken to Kounice's dormitory in Brno, he was sentenced, imprisoned in Mírov and in 42, I think sometime in late summer or early autumn, he was transported to Auschwitz. He was in Auschwitz for a year. In fact, he almost never talked about Auschwitz; I think that was the darkest time for him. And he was happy when after a year he was transferred to Buchenwald, because it was known among the prisoners that in Auschwitz they were destined to work themselves to death, whereas in Buchenwald there was hope that somehow one could adapt to the camp life and have a chance to survive."

  • "In 1977, when Charter 77 came to light, a ROH training or meeting began there, explaining to us how the losers and soldiers for the ugly money of the capitalist or the pope preached the ideas that lead to World War III and the breakup of our beautiful socialist world; so you could see that the regime itself was getting rather nervous. My mother signed the Charter at the time, so we waited to see what it would be like, because it was not uncommon in the various circles of their friends who signed it to have to go to various interrogations. that they were hurt. And I assumed they would kick me out of school, and surprisingly, it didn't happen."

  • "I was 13 years old in 1968, where my serious memories begin. The world began to move and my parents, just as the Communists were enthusiastic, wished for change, and got involved in it to some extent. And I remember how it was the year when I first started reading the newspaper intensively, until then it was uninteresting for the child and suddenly a lot of things were happening and it was such a nice atmosphere.When then came August, we were at the cottage at that time and my parents they didn't let me go to Prague for the first week; it was such a wild one, when they fired at the Czech Radio, tanks were burning on Václavák, etc. In that week we returned to Prague and I could go to the streets and I could soak up the excitement, here an atmosphere where people argued over whether resistance should be active or passive, and of course the passive one prevailed, when Prague was affixed with various and often very funny posters against the occupiers. But that feeling was replaced relatively quickly by knowledge that this is not the case, and it was already clear in the autumn that the conditions that existed in the spring of 1968 will not be or will be very severed."

  • "I kept waking up worried two years later. It wasn't until the years 1994 and 1995 that we thought it was really all over and especially around us so far that we hope that a return to totalitarianism would not be possible."

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At that time it was a double anchor for me, Christianity lived in the Michle parish and the scout club.

Five-year-old Petr Goldmann
Five-year-old Petr Goldmann
zdroj: Domácí archiv

Petr Goldmann was born on May 9, 1955 in Prague as the second son of a family that supported the communist regime. The parents worked in high posts and even studied in Moscow, where their first son was born. Petr Goldmann‘s father was imprisoned for resistance during World War II and went to two concentration camps - Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where there were two secret lines - Christian and Communist. He became involved in the second structure that helped the environment survive. They were led by Josef Frank, whom Petr Goldmann‘s father considered a very honest man, so he was surprised to be tried and convicted in a fabricated trial in the 1950s. Petr Goldmann attended Křesomyslov Elementary School with extended language teaching, but his performance was not good. During the events of August 1968 the whole family was in a cottage in Senohraby; the parents of their older brother were allowed to go to Prague, but the younger thirteen-year-old Petr was not. He listened to Czechoslovak Radio for days and looked forward to the city, where he saw an excited city and felt the atmosphere of defiance. The parents did not agree with the invasion of Soviet troops. This period was important for Petr Goldmann, he refined his views and gradually went his own way. He joined the Scout and reconsidered his view of the world - both the Communist Party and the believing Christians - and converted to Catholicism. After a year at the lumberjack school, where he found out that this would not be his way of life, he got to Karlovy Vary for a pedagogical high school and studied with excellent results. However, he did not receive a recommendation for university. He started working as an educator at a boarding school in Lhotka, Prague. At this time, he already knew his current wife and began studying psychology by distance, because distance learning was not so much guarded by the regime. After graduation, the couple went to Karlovy Vary and worked in Ostrov nad Ohří, his wife Marie was a doctor. They belonged to the so-called gray zone - they were against communism, but at the same time they did not belong to active dissidents. They said several times that they were emigrating, but they were kept here by their aging parents. Petr Goldmann was not allowed to have interns in his ward and was often accused of religiously influencing his patients. His superior was a great communist. In 1991, their older son Jakub went to school and the family moved back to Prague with his younger son Šimon. The Goldmanns began working in a psychiatric hospital in Bohnice, where they worked until recently. Together with the Špinks, they founded the organization Cesta domů, which helps dying patients not to suffer and stay in the care of their families. Petr Goldmann is a recent retiree and faith is very important to him, which gives him the positive security that is important to him. It agrees very much with Václav Havel‘s motto „Hope is not the belief that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something will make sense - no matter how it turns out.“