Petr Novotný

* 1966

  • „My first interrogation took place right after our concert in a club. I was sixteen at the time and it was my first contact with the StB. Up until then I did not even know that the StB existed. As I was leaving the interrogation room one of officers asked me if I knew where I am. I responded that at a police station and he asked me if I am familiar with the term StB (State Security) and I said that I am not, which was the truth. This particular officer ended up visiting my school, which may have been a psychological pressure tactic against me. When I went to the bus stop in the morning I used to run into him on a regular basis. It was as if he was keeping tabs on me. When I ran into him in school when he was talking to the school principal that was not pleasant.“

  • „Our band (Křečový žíly) played at different underground festivals around the country and we also organized a series of festivals in Havlíčkuv Brod that we named Under That Watchtower (Pod tou strážní věží). The festival took place in a quarry near where my grandmother lived. My grandfather was an engineer and his company built train tunnels around the country. In 1948 they (the communists) took everything away and our family moved. His last project was a tunnel from Havlíčkuv Brod in the direction to Brno. We brought power from my grandmother’s small house with extension cords – 300 to 400 meters away. Our highlight came in 1986. There was a festival in Lipnice which attracted opponents of the regime who wore long hair (máničky) and we organized a parallel underground festival that was attended by 200 – 300 people. The local StB did not know about our fest, which caused them trouble with their bosses. We were in trouble as well, but not as much trouble as the StB unit in Havlíčkuv Brod.“

  • „When I was sixteen our band Křečový žíly had a concert here in Havlíčkuv Brod. Our first show was in my prefab tenement building, it was in the baby stroller storage room. The kids from the building came down for the show as well as our friends who played ice hockey and who later played for the national squad as well as a local gossipmonger Ms. Krejčová. Everyone was excited about the show and there was a lot of noise surrounding the band so the local chapter of the Socialist Youth League invited us to perform our first „official“ concert. It was without an audition. Three songs into the show they cut the power and wanted to end the performance. We continued playing though because you could hear the drums, we had an acoustic guitar with us and the singer had a very strong voice so we basically ended up playing the whole show. This made us very popular. Very few people even heard our music but the name Křečový žíly became very trendy.“

  • “There was an StB officer who lived in a house on our block. I regularly ran into him on my way to the bus stop. It was unpleasant to have contact with someone who constantly watches over you and is out to get you. He met with my school principal and I was called in to get an earful. It was not pleasant.”

  • „We arrived in Havlíčkova Borová and the village was full of cops, some in uniform and some in plain clothes. They used to carry concealed cameras. Theoretically there could be plenty of footage somewhere, I don’t know if these archives were destroyed or not. I remember the cops had these special leather bags – the lenses were in this part of the bag – and they filmed people discreetly. They filmed everybody. There was a helicopter overhead and the march ended in (Havlíčkova) Borová. I drove to Borová and stayed there for a while and then drove back with Tomáš Holenda. When we drove out of Borová the cops pulled us over and searched the car. They were after signature sheets which we no longer had. So they found nothing.“

  • “The winners were being announced at the Grenoble Olympic stadium and I realized that I am looking at the Czech flag. I said to myself ‘I am actually here representing the Czech Republic.’ It did not occur to me before I saw all the flags – the Czech flag being one of them. Then I realized I am the only other Czech who received a medal at this stadium besides Jiří Raška who dominated the ski jump (in 1968).

  • “The StB detained a young lady and were beating her, so I went over there to intervene and of course I became next in line. One of the policemen was beating on me, but since I had my school bag it didn’t hurt. They took the young lady and me to the local school from which they operated. An interrogation followed and they asked the usual questions. Where am I from, why was I there and so on. They also said that I resisted arrest and that I was rude to the officer. ‘Resisting arrest? Me?’ I answered. ‘I just stood there and the officer hit me while I tried to defend the young lady from a brutal beating.’ At the time I read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and of course I provoked them by speaking properly, by the book, which drove them into a frenzy. They beat my back with batons and this time I had no school bag. I resisted, passively resisted, and the brutal interrogation went on for some time. I found out what it is like to get a beating, a real beating. In the end they kicked me down the stairs and outside of the school building.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Lipnice nad Sázavou, 06.06.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:07:00
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Lipnice nad Sázavou, 12.06.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:49:12
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
  • 3

    Havlíčkův Brod, 21.08.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:27:53
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
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I found out what it is like to get a beating, a real beating

Prague Palach Week, Petr Novotný, January 1989 (P. Hrabalík archive)
Prague Palach Week, Petr Novotný, January 1989 (P. Hrabalík archive)
zdroj: archiv Petra Hrabalíka

Petr Novotný was born on January 20, 1966 in Havlíčkův Brod where he also spent his childhood. Later on in years, he studied a gymnasium in Chotěboř and became a band member in Gumovej knedlík as well as Křečový žíly. In the mid 1980s, his grandmother’s house became the place for concerts and meetings of the underground movement in Havlíčkův Brod. Novotný was frequently called in for interrogations. In the autumn of 1988 he partook in the founding of an independent organization Havlíčkova mládež. In March of the following year StB (State Security) opens an operational file on Petr Novotný to vet him. In 2009, he finishes in second place at the European skateboarding championship in Grenoble and in 2017 he becomes European skateboarding champion in the Giant Slalom event. At the present he dedicates his time to the Zlatý lev hotel as well as the Petrkov publishing house, coffee house and library.