Return to Czechoslovakia felt like an ice-cold shower
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Ilja Hradecký was born on 1 May 1945 in Zlín, where his parents worked at the Baťa factory. His father, Josef Hradecký, worked as a culture focused journalist and his mother, Julie Hradecká, worked as a foreign correspondent. After the war, witness´s father faced accusations of collaboration because he had also written about German culture during the war. The accusations were disproved. In 1951, his father had to leave his job of an accountant in a printing company. Within the campaign called “Operation 77”, which meant 77 000 thousand people sent to manufacturing sector, he started to work as a steamroller stoker. After finishing primary school, Ilja Hradecký began an apprenticeship at printing works in Olomouc and at the same time he started distance studies at a grammar school and a graphic arts school. In 1965 he had to join the army and served at road troops. In 1965 his father tried to officially apply for emigration to Austria with the whole family. Ilja Hradecký was an eyewitness and a photographer of the occupation on 21 August 1968. A month later he travelled to France intending to emigrate. However, he met his future wife Vlastimila there and in 1969, after their wedding, they returned to Czechoslovakia. They settled in Nitra in the 1970s, but under pressure performed by State Security and military counter-intelligence, they moved to the village of Branná in the Šumperk district in 1976. They bought a cottage in nearby Černá Voda, where they organized meetings of young religious people in the late 1980s. In 1990, he and his wife helped Romanian refugees and founded a charity organization “Hope”. They built one of the strongest charity organizations in the Czech Republic, which has been working up to now.
