Viktor Bejbl

* 1946

  • "The apartment was robbed to death, as people say. They even unscrewed the taps. And I had gas heaters there, and they were taken away too. I had wardrobes, beds, bedding, equipment, sound equipment and such [things]. It was all looted and I never got it back and I never got any compensation. And on top of that, I got what was the fine, Jesus Christ, for illegally leaving the Republic. And I paid that off for a long time. It was about ten thousand [since] I got the fine."

  • "We've tried quite a few crossings and we've been knocked out from everywhere. There was even a military Gaz 69 that came with us from Maribor and took us about 40 kilometres back to the interior. There were no navigators or anything like that back then. So I studied the map and I studied a really miniature border crossing there called Kuzma. It was high up in the mountains and it was absolutely silent. And I ordered it to stop, and we looked at the chirping of that crossing. The barrier was raised on the Yugoslav side, and I thought it wouldn't be a problem. At that time, you only drove on so-called grey passports and they were only valid in Yugoslavia and nowhere else. I don't know if the Austrians didn't know that or what, and we had Austrian visas for that. We had them printed in Zagreb - Austrian visas in our passports. And I don't know if they just didn't know, or I can't explain it to this day. The Yugoslavians, they were drunk, we didn't care about them at all. And we arrived at the Austrian crossing and the boys were dozing there. And when they heard the engine, they came and raised the barrier, and we showed them our visas and they just said, 'Go!' And we were in Austria."

  • "They loaded us [in Odessa] into a gazik, which was an off-road car, and took us somewhere. There we were ushered into some kind of dungeon where there was a light bulb burning near the ceiling, which was extremely high, maybe eight or ten meters high, which the Russians at that time called Leninka. It had a wattage of only 15 watts, so the light that it was giving off didn't come down to the ground. It was already half-light. And it was a huge room, and there were about 45 of us, no difference in gender, no difference in age. And we had Moscow bread to eat and a pitcher of water. That was always there. We went to the toilet on demand, on a knock on the door. They kept us like that for four days. Then the 'kamandirs' came and blindfolded us so we wouldn't go blind because we were there in the dark. But it was still a terrible blow to the eyes. We could see almost nothing that morning. They loaded us onto a ZIL truck and drove us all the way across the Ukraine to the border crossing at Čierna pri Čope, or something like that. And there the nice driver turned on the tipping mechanism of the truck and dumped us like a pile of coal. Well, we were just there... we thought it was war, to be honest. We didn't have any information, so we were guessing what was going on. No contact with the embassy, absolutely nothing, no discussions, nothing. And it was only here in that Montenegro that we learned that our allied brothers had attacked us viciously and started to make their own arrangements. We were also immediately advised that there was an Austrian crossing nearby and to head there quickly. And I, like an idiot, didn't do it."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Ústí nad Labem, 23.03.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 02:02:03
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - Ústecký kraj
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Today I know that going back to Czechoslovakia was the biggest mistake of my life.

Viktor Bejbl during filming
Viktor Bejbl during filming
zdroj: PB - studio Ústí nad Labem

Viktor Bejbl was born on 13 March 1946 in Ústí nad Labem to a single mother, Maria Bejbl. He never knew his father and his upbringing was taken care of by his mother‘s parents, Antonín and Marie Bejbl. With his grandfather‘s help he managed to get into the Secondary Vocational School of the North Bohemian Armaturka in Krupka. Although he did not enjoy his studies, he finished the apprenticeship and eventually got to the twelve-year school in Ústí nad Labem, which he successfully completed with a high school diploma. After the war in Holýšov (1965-1967), where he worked as a connection technician, he started working as a wagon repairer. Later, however, he got a job as a prop man in the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem and at the same time he started to professionally devote himself to his greatest hobby, which was photography. As a freelance photographer, he took pictures mainly for the daily newspaper Průboj. He mainly documented everyday life in Ústí nad Labem and the destruction of villages and towns in North Bohemia. He lived through the August occupation while on holiday in the Soviet Union in Odessa, where he was arrested with a friend on 21 August 1968 and forcibly returned to Czechoslovakia a few days later. After his return to Ústí nad Labem, he joined the protests and demonstrations, which he also captured in his photographs. In 1978 he managed to travel legally to Italy, where he was already considering emigrating. In 1982 he bought a trip to Yugoslavia and emigrated to Austria. After a year, however, he finally decided to return to Czechoslovakia because of his girlfriend at the time. During his absence, his apartment was confiscated and robbed, but he later managed to get it back. He lived through the Velvet Revolution in Ústí nad Labem and Prague, where he participated in demonstrations and documented all the events. After the fall of the regime, he left again for Austria, but for family reasons he had to return after a while. Today he is actively involved in photography and organizes occasional exhibitions. At the time of the filming in 2024 he lived in Ústí nad Labem.