Ing. Otakar Holec

* 1948

  • "After I found out that my aunt and uncle were going to emigrate, I decided to come back. The [scout] club played a role in that, I thought it was an important thing, that I couldn't let it go, and of course the family, my mom. Dad was still alive at that time, but not for long, he died two years later. And I'll admit that Hana Navrátilová also played a role in that. She then devoted herself to the girl scout club. We dated for a while, then we didn't for some time, this was the phase when we were dating. It was not easy, because I met people who left the Czech Republic for Britain and said: 'Don't go back there at all. If you're here, stay here because it has no hope, it's broken and it's going to take a long time, if ever, to come back. The Prague Spring is gone.' Coping with it was not easy. It was a matter of choosing one way or the other, there were no other options."

  • "The invasion began around eleven o'clock on the night of August 20. When I took the newspaper out of my mailbox at around 8:30 in the morning, it was there as the main news. (The witness is crying.) I'm sorry. These are the emotions that come back after such a long time, because... when... in your twenties you get into this situation, you don't know what to do with it. The first thing I did was immediately call my uncle and ask what I should do about it. The information was quick and from then on it was a matter of seeing what was new, how it developed. Partly to contend with English in the news, which was not easy, but the images themselves were legible. The images alone were enough."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Praha, 01.06.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:10:35
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I felt a commitment to the legacy of our fathers‘ generation

Otakar Holec in 1967
Otakar Holec in 1967
zdroj: archive of the witness

Otakar Holec was born on September 14, 1948 in Brno. His father and his three brothers ran a stone mining and processing company, which was nationalized immediately after the February coup. The entrepreneurial family background was not much talked about at home. As a girl, the mother went to the scout group and later got involved in the management of hiking groups and clubs herself, which she also inspired her sons to do. Otakar Holec graduated from secondary grammar school in Brno and entered the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Brno BUT. In 1968, he participated in the restoration of Junák. During the holidays of the same year, he went on a work assignment to Great Britain, where he met his uncle Sláva Šulec, a war veteran and post-February emigrant. After August 21, 1968, he himself considered the possibility of emigration, but he preferred to return to Czechoslovakia and lead the Junák, later tourist section. In the seventies, he worked at the Institute for the International Biological Program at the Forestry Faculty of the Brno University of Applied Sciences and at the plant for the production of computer external memories of the Brno Zbrojovka. At the same time, he and his wife Hana Holcová devoted themselves to the management of tourist groups and instructor training. Otakar Holec became one of the essential personalities of the Lipnice Holiday School, which trained future camp leaders. He worked there until 1999. In 1993, together with his cousin, he sought the restitution of the family stone company, which was founded by their grandfather. It still operates today under the name Granit Holec. It focuses mainly on tiling and other uses of granite in interiors.