Pavel Janda

* 1965

Emigrant
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    Attack on the Twins in New York

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    délka: 01:00
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    "I worked near them for about half a year and every morning I saw the sun rise over them and it started to feel great. I began to think that this... and at the time it was no longer the tallest skyscraper in the world, but it was the tallest skyscraper in the free world, so I kind of respected it. Then, when they were attacked, they all went to see the roof and I didn't even go. It seemed terribly sad to me and I was sorry to even go to see it, because I would have, not pleasure, simply experience something that I don't want to exist at all, I mean like the attack."

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    Preparations for emigration

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    délka: 00:36
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    "Basically just family and a few close friends. That was a real secret, I didn't tell almost anyone. At that time, I remember that a friend of mine in high school took me to Blatnička and got me drunk there and tried to get it out of me. And I didn't tell him then and he never spoke to me again. Actually, I didn't find out at all whether it was an action of the secret police at the time or not.'

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    First moments in New York after emigration

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    délka: 00:47
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    "I landed there at night, I came out of the terminal building and it was so terribly ugly that I crawled back inside. And I slept there on a bench between variously quarreling Indian and Italian families. And I didn't go to New York until the next day in a taxi. I basically just had a few addresses for people who didn't know about me. I was afraid to agree with someone, because at that time it would still be difficult over the phone. Apparently, if I made an agreement with someone like that, they would let me go nowhere.''

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    Praha, 11.03.2021

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    délka: 02:10:44
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I didn‘t want to experience something so sad

young Pavel Janda i
young Pavel Janda i
zdroj: archiv pamětníka
zdroj: archiv pamětníka
Stáhnout obrázek

Pavel Janda was born on August 20, 1965 in Prague. He graduated from grammar school in Štěpánská Street and entered university. During his studies, he decided to immigrate to the United States. He went there in the summer of 1988 and gradually began to support himself by construction work. He lived in New York, where he was also at the time of the attack on the skyscrapers in September 2001. Later he returned to the Czech Republic, where he still lives today.

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Pavel Janda

  • datum:
    01.01.1970
  • typ média:
    Internet
  • název média:
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