Mgr. Radek Kotlaba

* 1967

  • “We were counting ourselves at the bottom part of the Wenceslas square and were a bit afraid as we found out some people were missing and I don’t know who suggested going back for them. We were returning from Můstek to the National Avenue and got behind the crossing in Spálená. As we arrived there were shoes and pieces of clothing lying on the ground; we saw blood stains. That really scared us. We found none of our missing friends. We were returning past Národní towards Jungmannovo square and wanted to go to the underground. And there was a group of policemen with batons chasing people through the street. We all ran down the underground in Můstek from Jungmannovo square. Someone stopped the escalator going upstairs so that we could use it to run down too. We saw batons above us and though: ‚Well now we are trapped!‘ and just kept praying so that the metro comes soon and stops in our station. Luckily it did and we got on and went to the Republic square and then to the Prague-centre station, from where we were supposed to take a train to Ústí. Accidently we found a boy we were missing and went looking for in one of the metro carriages, and he was rather beaten and bleeding from his head. It could have been almost ten o´clock and we got out in the Prague-centre station, got into the waiting room and waited for the train to Ústí. It was a tense feeling as there were armoured transporters coming from Bulhar through Hybernská with the barb wire ploughshares and many of them lined from Lidový house to the back and many policemen around them. We were looking at them through the window and commented in a rough way. There was a man sleeping in the corner, who looked like a homeless but a while later we saw him standing at the transporter talking to those officer. We got scared and took the first train coming in regardless to where it was going. We got off in Kralupy waiting for the next train to take us to Ústí, where we arrived right before midnight. We talked the whole way and the euphoric feeling totally changed to an intense feeling of danger.“

  • “I remember exactly joining the Pioneer. It was at a school event, probably the Spartan celebrations. They drove us by bus to Prague. I swore the pioneer oath in the museum of V. I. Lenin in Hybernská street. They tied our scarves and swore an oath. We considered it a formality, which I probably perceived as an opportunity to escape to Prague back then with neither negative nor positive connotation. When we got back to Boleslav and got out of the bus, we tied the new scarves around our heads or diagonally over an eye and played pirate and cowboys in the park. Someone spotted us there and called the director. We got a major talking to for profaning the symbol of pioneering organisation and we were not worthy the scarves. That was the first time I realised that all that was not just a game and things are not functioning all that spontaneously. Apart from having such a funny story it made not deeper marks on me. Even today I have the red scarf in my wardrobe.“

  • “We went past the river bank and met the first cordon of policemen, which was actually directing us to the river and did not let us go to the Old town. Suddenly the tram riding past stopped and people were getting out and joining the march. We gradually figured it was not just a game or a happening, but something bigger. When we walked past the National theatre, Mr. Rösner and others were waving at us, probably had a break in between their performances. The kind of march looked impressive and celebratory, almost euphoric; I surely did not felt like anyone organised it, but rather felt spontaneously with all the people joining us, sometimes getting out of their houses as we walked past. Already near Vyšehrad the atmosphere was different from what was expected. ‚We are at the wrong Castle!‘ was the label at Mácha´s statue. We got into the group that was pushed to the level of Mikulandská street. I was nowhere near Spálená street, which was closed. I remember really clearly, that we were standing at the arcade, where the memory plate with the palms has been until recently and we felt the pressure. The first lightly panic strike came when we looked back near Mikulandská and the line of people, end of which was too far to see before, suddenly ended somewhere near the New scene. The area near the bridge was already cleared and empty. They first started to push people and then we felt the loss of security, as we were no longer a part of a large mass and only became a smaller group. Still I remember singing the song ‚Ach, sonny, sonny‘ and ‚We shall overcome‘, and then I don’t recall much, but I know we managed to leave through the Mikulandská street and they were letting us out in part. I first had a good idea to hide in the arcade but my friends talked me out of it and persuaded me to run away. As they were letting us go through the side in cycles, some people got beaten by a baton. I did not get beaten, but a friend walking behind me did and showed us huge bruising. As we were leaving through Mikulandská, they selectively marked a few people. We went through some small squares led by some locals, who got us all the way to Spálená...“

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    v Mladé Boleslavi, v bytě pamětníka, 15.05.2017

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History seeks characters, through which it gets realised

Radek Kotlaba in 1989
Radek Kotlaba in 1989
zdroj: rodinné album pamětníka

Radek Kotlaba was born on 3rd January, 1967 in Mladá Boleslav in a family of a technician and a clerk as the first out of two children. Following elementary school he studied a gymnasium in Mnichovo Hradiště finished by graduation exam in 1985. His first attempt of high-school studies at the Faculty of Pedagogics in Czech Budweiser ended up in the first grade. The next year he taught at the first grade of the basic school in Mladá Boleslav and returned to the high school in autumn 1987, when he started studying the Faculty of Pedagogics in Ústí nad Labem. In 1988 became a member of a theatre group performing political plays. In 1989 he signed the petition Several sentences and in October the same year he attended the democratic initiative meeting in Brno. On 17th November he participated in marching from Albertov to the Vyšehrad and the Národní avenue. After returning to Ústí he became the founder of the strike committee along with other students and an organiser of occupation strike he helped organising public meetings and happenings. He also participated in a campaign to support election of Václav Havel. In 1990 he was present at establishing academic community, academic senate, students´ self-government, scientific committee meeting and initiative in moderations of pre-graduate preparation of teachers. Following his studies he shorty acted as a pastoral assistant in a parish and then worked as a teacher at the gymnasium in Mladá Boleslav, where he has been teaching history, the Czech language and social sciences and also works as an educational councillor. He has got two daughters, lives with his family in Mladá Boleslav and in his leisure time he plays amateur theatre.