Jan Balcar

* 1946

  • "But after August 68, I don't understand how the party could have grown to a million and a half again. And that was a period of pretence. Well, a moral marasmus, but a complete one. Because after August 68, I'm convinced that nobody believed in it anymore, but it was bringing in decent money to be beholden to the regime, so why wouldn't I join the party? Why would I? I was offered twice to be a headmaster in a school, a music school. They always came to me first, asking me to sign this. "Screw it! Just sign it.' What?!"

  • "A few days before that, Agnes of Bohemia was canonized in Rome. And I, as a musician, had been going to churches for twenty years to play at St Ignatius' in Charles Square and St James' in the Old Town. And we were invited to the feast of the canonization of St. Agnes in Rome, so I took part in it, we played the Hanus Mass there. And I had an incredible experience there. We were sitting there in this dining room, various visitors, and now the radio was announcing that the wall had fallen in Germany. Well, and the whole table goes, "Hooray! And now the Italians were looking at us and saying, "Are you rejoicing that your world is falling apart?"

  • "My mother, when we were reminiscing like this one time, she pulled out a box where she had some mementos from our childhood, when we used to draw pictures and stuff, and she found a little paper heart in there. That was International Women's Day, it was a communist holiday. And now the heart, when it was opened, it said: 'Dear Mother, I wish you every success in the struggle for peace. Paul' My brother. Well, that's like when you look at it today, you wonder what they made of us, how far they pushed us."

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    Praha, 14.12.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 51:35
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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After August 1968, nobody could trust communism anymore

Jan in his youth
Jan in his youth
zdroj: archive of a witness

Jan Balcar was born on 14 September 1941 in Prague. His father was an evangelical minister in Prague - Strašnice and his mother taught piano. Jan had two older brothers with whom he formed a band in his youth. Among his relatives we can find political prisoners of the communist regime and emigrants, however, the witness avoided persecution. He graduated from the conservatory and later from the Academy of Performing Arts. After school, he began teaching music at the Jan Deyl Conservatory for the Visually Impaired in Mala Strana. He became deputy director, although he never joined the Communist Party. In November, as a musician, he attended the canonization of Agnes of Bohemia in Rome, and after returning home he euphorically experienced the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Iron Curtain.