"I also still remember my last experience with military training, which I was not at. When I went for a blue book, a person whose rank I didn't know told me, 'Here's a blue book, but don't think that's the end of it for you. If there is a war, we would call you and you would have to cook. 'And I said,' Well, if there was a war and you called me to cook, it would be over for you. '"
"Initially, we more or less illegally installed only a tableau on the wall in front of the Bory prison, because Václav Havel was actually imprisoned there. It was created due to the fact that the Pilsen City Council was thinking about what to name after him. And I thought that he had basically nothing to do with anything here, except for beer, and except for the Bory prison in which he was held. So it turned out that we first put a small plastic sign on the prison gate at the entrance. The management of the Bory prison then, of course, took it off. I received a letter to come and take it back. Quite tense, I went there with what they would do to me, what would be waiting for me and I was met with a very pleasant and fair approach. They said they had to take it off and would give it back to me. They won't punish or prosecute me. And then we agreed there that if I managed to organize it, that they would agree to place a real memorial plaque, directly on the building of the Bory prison, which we did in about a year or year and a half later. "
"I have such memory from Klatovy, where I also spent one time with the other grandmother. And I lived there that year 1968 when we are talking about those political issues. So I spent that sadly famous August day in Klatovy. And because I had appendicitis, I was taken to the hospital then. Normally they would have tried to solve it, but because there was such havoc around, they directly operated on my appendix. So that was my biggest sacrifice to the occupation. "
Lumír Aschenbrenner was born on June 23, 1960 in Pilsen. From 1975 to 1979 he studied at the Julius Fučík Grammar School on Odborářů Square, today‘s St. Nicholas Grammar School. In 1985 he graduated from the University of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. From 1985 he worked in Škoda as an independent professional economist. In addition to his collections of micro poetry and cartoon humour, he published the samizdat magazine Free Life. He participated in concerts of various rock bands and thus earned the attention of the STB. In 1989, he signed the petition A Few Sentences (Nekolik vet). In November 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, he took part in Pilsen demonstrations, printing his own posters. In 1990, he briefly worked as the head of the economic department of the West Bohemian sewers. In 1991–1994 he was a member of the privatization commission for Plzeň-město. In 1991, he joined the Civic Democratic Party and became a member of the ODS Regional Council in the West Bohemian Region. In 1993 he completed postgraduate studies in economics and management. In 1994, he was elected to the Pilsen 2 - Slovany city council, defending his mandate in the elections in 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010. In 1998, he became mayor of the Pilsen 2 - Slovany city district. In 2014, he returned to the council and was also elected senator. In 2018 he defended the post of representative of the city of Pilsen and MO 2 - Slovany, he became mayor again. In 2020, he also defended the post of the senator. He was responsible for the creation and installation of a memorial plaque in the Bory prison in memory of Václav Havel‘s imprisonment.
