Karel Peterka

* 1948

  • "My friends, who I was in the “receiver” with for the first month and then they went to the NCO school, the motorized artillery school, in Zadni Chodov, so there... when I met them before the end of the war - [I learned from them that] they were deployed in Prague [against demonstrators on August 21, 1969]. I even read on the Internet In the Footsteps of the Chods (Guards) of Plano, which is a company that deals with the history of the border guards, there they wrote that already at the beginning of August two emergency companies went to Prague, where they were then deployed. Some of the guys said they were dressed in People's Militia uniforms. One brought back from Prague a scar on his cheek. The boys said we didn't want to beat anyone, but they were shooting some bolts against them with a sling. Pepik's mask was pierced, he bled a little. They took him... back for medical treatment. When they saw that it was a friend who was wounded,they were fighting and hitting them without thinking."

  • "Part of the training was also border training. Everyone had to learn to say the use of the weapon by heart. When you can fire when you have to fire, when you cannot fire. If someone thinks that the border guards on the line were murderers, that they said, 'Hey, someone is coming, let's put out the cigarettes and shoot,' that's not true. They went on duty, they were loaded to the gills, and they had a Model 58 submachine gun, but before they started shooting they had to call out, 'Stop, hands up, leave cover. Hands up, drop your weapon.' A warning shot in the air, and only then, when somebody aimed at them, then they could shoot. Firing against vehicles, vessels and aircraft only if these vehicles were firing at the patrol. They were allowed to return fire to defend themselves. No firing against indistinct sounds or silhouettes. Also, there were so-called screening patrols, where a career officer or warrant officer went on what was called a snoop. Some outlaws fired their pistols at the patrol. I've heard of, I wasn't there, that a guy enlisted who had a performance class in the shooting. When the machine guns were being shot, he arranged with the gunsmith and shot his own machine gun. When a 'dude' like that sent a bee or two up the log he was hiding behind, a foot above him. And then he had to wash his shorts in the creek. That's about the border shooting. No firing when the missiles might land on foreign territory. I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of a border guard who had an intruder walk into a foreign country and say, `I couldn't shoot because if I missed it would fall on the neighbours.' I wouldn't want to be in his shoes when he was standing in front of a prosecutor. Those cases were handled by the prosecutor and it [responsibility] was always on the soldier. 
When various historical platforms say that the Border Patrol gave border guards the right to shoot at fellow citizens when they went to freedom-that was not a right. Those soldiers had a duty to prevent the border from being breached, to prevent that from going abroad. To fulfill that duty, they had that gun. They didn't have the right, but they had the duty to shoot if necessary. If you have the right, you can use it or not, that's up to you. But you have to fulfill that duty. And if you don't, there are penalties."

  • "The comrade said to me, 'Look, comrade, Father has a stain.' The stain was the expulsion from the National Security Corbs. But the comrade didn't tell me that, it came out later. 'And when Father has a mark, it goes to the third-degree relatives. I was sixteen at the time, I didn't have any children. But they already had a stain on their political profile."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 01.07.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:54:19
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha, 18.08.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 59:10
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I hadn‘t had kids yet, but their political profile was already stained

Karel Peterka in 1970s
Karel Peterka in 1970s
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Karel Peterka was born on 21 November 1948 in Prague. His whole life is connected with the village and later the Prague district of Řeporyje, where he worked as a municipal chronicler in the 1970s and 1980s. His parents came to Řeporyje from the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. His father worked in the gendarmerie, but in 1948 he had to leave the police because he refused to join the Communist Party. This cadre „scrape“ also accompanied his son Karel, who was unable to seek flight training with the Svazarm because of this. Karel Peterka graduated in 1967 from the Na Zatlanka Gymnasium and entered the Czech Technical University, but did not finish his studies. From 1969-1971, he was in the military service with the border guard unit in Rozvadov, where he was in charge of the supply depot. On 21 August 1969, his colleagues from the NCO school were deployed to suppress demonstrations in the streets of Prague. After his military service, Karel Peterka returned to Řeporyje and worked as a standard-setter in the construction and engineering industry. Between 1975 and 1987 he wrote a municipal chronicle and photographed life in Řeporyje. He moved to Prague to live with his wife for several years, but in 1993 they returned to Řeporyje and renovated the family house of his parents. Karel Peterka still lives in Řeporyje to this day, his photographs are part of the still published municipal calendars.