We would be better people if we knew the history and learned from it
Petr Andrle was born on November 21, 1942 to a teaching family in Kladno. He grew up in Klasterec nad Ohri in northwestern Bohemia in the former Sudetes. He worked as an editor of the company journal in a ball bearing factory in Klášterec nad Ohří. Then he moved to North Moravia and worked for the magazine OKD Havíř. After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia, he was making and distributing leaflets denouncing the occupation. In 1971, when he was shortly managing a cultural house in Havířov, he was arrested and charged for stealing socialist property. He was released after three months and then acquitted at the court. Until the fall of the Communist regime he worked in mines in Karviná. After the Velvet Revolution he moved to Moravský Beroun in the Olomouc region. He opened an antiquarian bookshop there, founded the newspaper Čas and the Moravian Expedition publishing house, in which he publishes the local history and historical publications. He commits to improve Czech-German relations and cultivate former Sudetenland. Since 2008 he has been living and working in Čeladná in Beskydy.