Ing. Jan Moravec

* 1941

  • “Once we went to the vicar’s, I was about five years old, and the vicar had a housemaid who was cooking for him - there were people playing cards downstairs, women talking how things were going, and so on - and she took my hand and said: ‘Come with me, I’ll show you something!’ She took me by hand and led me upstairs to a large hall and that was quite a something for a young boy – a room full of weapons! He had an entire collection – rifles, swords, sabres, little cannons, armour, revolvers etc., a lot of things. I was looking at it, touching the things and I took a revolver. Then I went to him with the revolver and said: ‘Look what I found!’ and he says: ‘You like it, don’t you?’ I said: ‘I do.’ ‘Keep it then!’”

  • “It went so far that they gave me an application form and I filled it out but I was hesitant about what to write there – there was one interesting question: What is your opinion on religion? I simply wrote what I felt, which is that all people have always believed that there is something greater than just to run through this world for a little while, so why should it be otherwise in this regard? One believes that there is simply something greater than just to walk through this world and die, and after death comes a much greater time than just the period that one spends here. I thus summarized it in this way and I submitted my application and everything was all right. Then, about a month later, there was a big fuss; they called me and asked me if I knew what I had done to them and whether this question that they had asked me in the questionnaire applied to me. I answered that of course it did. They were terrified; the party chairman nearly got kicked out for that and from then on they left me in peace. I believe that God perhaps did somehow help me in this.”

  • “The family of my father-in-law were farmers and they lost everything – although some of it – some living and non-living inventory – was later returned to them, their lives have been ruined because my father-in-law got fired from his job. They did not imprison him, but they sent him to work in a foundry where the poor man, a farmer who loved horses and animals, had to cast lead and what not. He would say: ‘I wanted to throw myself into that hot iron.’ So much miserable he was.”

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    Místní knihovna v Horních Počernicích, 24.07.2013

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Memory of the Nation: Stories from Horní Počernice
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Treat others as you think that they should treat you

Jan Moravec with a revolver given to him by priest Štverák
Jan Moravec with a revolver given to him by priest Štverák

Jan Moravec grew up in Horní Počernice, where he was born in 1941 into a Christian family. He remembers several events that he perceived as a child during World War Two and later during the 1950s, a period which he regards as a true age of darkness. His life was significantly shaped by his friendship with vicar František Štverák, who was an influential personality in the modern history of our country. Jan Moravec studied the faculty of electrical engineering at the Czech Technical University (ČVUT) in Prague and after graduation he received a job placement in a communications company in Hradec Králové. Subsequently he worked in the construction department of the factory Pal in Počernice and then in Narex Šestajovice, where he became the branch manager. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he worked in its parent company in Prague. Although he was being persuaded to join the Communist Party, he never became its member: he did submit his application in 1987 when he believed that the situation has changed, but he was rejected for his religious beliefs. Since early on, Jan has been interested in nature, he is a member of the Hunters‘ Association and he recalls the situation in the Association during the communist regime. In 1989 he took part in the protest rallies in Prague and he was actively involved in politics after he became a member of the Civic Forum. Jan Moravec was elected into the municipal government in Horní Počernice after the Velvet Revolution and he significantly contributed to the development of this Prague borough.