Ing. Hynek Jurman

* 1956

  • "I used to write for the Dukovany bulletin, Gorbachev's Reconstruction was already on the air at that time, so I wrote under the pseudonym Bořivoj Nebojsa the so-called Reconstruction articles, where I criticized all those things that were worth criticizing. Only two people knew who Bořivoj Nebojsa was. It was the editor Kořínek and my boss. And he said, that every issue was a mess, causing an uproar at the OVKSČ (District Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) in Třebíč. And I wrote about all these negative phenomena. And the second thing was that I also wrote geography articles about Dukovany area under my real name. There was a press day, some important correspondents were meeting in Třebíč, and because someone had to be there for Dukovany, that was the priority then, Dukovany. I wrote the most for that newspaper so the editor suggested my name - Hynek Jurman. I entered the premises of the OVKSČ (District Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) in Třebíč for the first time, and when the chief secretary handed me the award, we were photographed and it was published on the front page of Jiskra (t/n: communist newspaper). My boss Petr Mach commented, 'well, that's absurd, Nebojsa on the front page'. They had no idea that they gave the award to someone, who annoyed them so much."

  • "Two months passed, I read Sport, Rudé právo (t/n: Red Law – communist newspaper) was piling up, I practically didn't open it much and after two months I went to unsubscribe from both. The postmaster told me that it was not possible to unsubscribe from Rudé právo. So I waited until she was on vacation, there was a substitute for her, and suddenly it was no problem to unsubscribe the newspaper. Of course, I got into conflict with my superiors. My misdemeanours piled up. My brother was getting married and I got a small cross around my neck from my parents for my graduation and I never wore it until then. I didn't take it to my military service, I kept it in a box. But when my brother was getting married I put the cross around my neck and I kept it there. It was in July. It was hot and I was walking around with my shirt open. It took them four days to call me to the director's office where he scolded me, 'you're wearing a cross, and you unsubscribed from Rudé právo. I was going to offer you a raise, but now you get nothing."

  • "I have an experience with my uncle Adolf, because he came to visit us in August of 1968. He had close relatives in Brno and he came to Štěpánov to visit his birthplace that was the house where we lived. He came to visit us on the afternoon of 20 August 1968. I saw him for the first time. And as he went around the village having a welcome drink with everyone, he was already in such an 'elated mood'. His daughters stayed in Brno then, he came only with his wife, the English woman, she was driving. Adolf got into a good mood, had a drink with my father and left for Brno in the evening of 20 August. And his daughter told us many years later, he was drunk when he came home, so he went to sleep. At two o'clock at night his niece's husband, an officer, came in and said, 'The Russians are here, get out of here."

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    Brno, 10.08.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:04:51
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
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In Štěpánov the red hand rages, tearing down leaflets and schedule pages

Hynek Jurman before entering school, 1962
Hynek Jurman before entering school, 1962
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Hynek Jurman was born on 4 February 1956 in Nové Město na Moravě to parents Marta and Hynek Jurman. His father‘s cousin Lt. Colonel Adolf Jurman, a member of the RAF (Royal Air Force), had to leave Czechoslovakia involuntarily three times. Hynek witnessed his last escape from the country in August 1968. During the period of normalisation, he had problems getting into a school with a humanity focus. In 1975, he graduated from the Secondary Industrial School in Žďár nad Sázavou. Just before the graduation he was interrogated by the State Secret Police (StB) and threatened with expulsion from school. A negative personnel report did not allow him to study at the Department of Journalism, so he graduated from the Brno University of Technology. After completing his military service, he joined the national enterprise MEZ Brno, Moravian Electro-technical Factory with a branch in Štěpánov nad Svratkou. Several times he was offered to join the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, but he refused every time. Problems at work, but also in his personal life, forced him to change jobs after 1985. He joined the nuclear power plant in Dukovany. He was on initial training in Trnava at the time of the Chernobyl explosion. He was actively involved in the events of 1989, he co-founded the local Civic Forum (OF) and became its spokesman. He has written countless articles for various periodicals, several tourist guides, plays, 37 books, where he has put into perspective events from World War II to the present. From 1989, he taught at the vocational school in Bystřice nad Pernštejnem, where he started working at the information centre in 2005. After his retirement (2020) he initiated the placement of a memorial plaque to Lt. Colonel Adolf Jurman on his birthplace. In 2021 he lived in Štěpánov nad Svratkou.