Fear drove me to emigration
Jaroslav Havlík was born on 23 April 1952 in Prague. His mother, Edith, née Spitzerová, came from a German-speaking Jewish family that survived the war; his mother was one of the children who left on a train organized by a group around Nicolas Winton. The witness trained as a mechanic and graduated from a secondary technical school after finishing his evening studies. Even before that, on 21 August 1968, he experienced the dramatic events near the Czechoslovak Radio building. He was interested in big beat and made friends with people belonging to the underground culture. In 1979 he became the caretaker of the Jewish cemetery in Jindřichův Hradec. He lived there in the caretaker‘s house. At the weekends, friends who shared an interest in music gathered at his house. State Security was interested in non-conformist youth. State Security officers harassed Jaroslav with house searches and interrogations. As the pressure from the secret police increased, Jaroslav got scared and decided to emigrate. In 1981, he went abroad with an officially organized tour and applied for asylum in the Federal Republic of Germany. For 12 years he ran a restaurant in Swabia. In 2000 he moved permanently to the Czech Republic. He has been a photographer for a long time and has shown his pictures at exhibitions. In 2021 Jaroslav Havlík was living in Člunek near Jindřichův Hradec.