I was standing against a tank holding a bloody flag
Stáhnout obrázek
Josef Novotný was born on October 3, 1941 in Pardubice. His parents were shoemakers Josef Novotný Sr. and his mother Eliška, née Ditrichová. After his parents divorced in 1946, he moved with his mother to Hradec Králové. Because of his father‘s trade, he was not allowed to go to a four-year school, so he graduated from a two-year economics course without a high school diploma. The fateful moment of his life came on August 21, 1968 in Prague, where he stood with the Czechoslovak flag in front of the radio building to face a Soviet tank. He was shot in the right arm and wounded by a pressure wave from the exploding vehicle. This moment was captured by the German photographer Volker Krämer (who later worked for the weekly Stern). In 1969, Josef Novotný was dismissed from his job at Dřevotvar and investigated by the State Security (StB). He was intensively involved in Junák. During the Prague Spring, he led a troop of Zubras under the nickname Akela and after the ban in 1970 he returned to tramping. Most of his life he worked as a professional driver - he drove four and a half million kilometres without an accident. During the Velvet Revolution he participated in demonstrations in Hradec Králové. In 2010 he moved to Kunín to be near his brother in Příbor. He was living in Kunín at the time of filming in 2025.
