“In 1968, I was a member of the committee of the Communist party in our company and I was the technical secretary of the director of ČKD Slaný. That meant that I was a very powerful man in my early thirties. I was present at almost everything that was happening in the ČSD at that time. The progressive changes that were underway were supposed to lead to more democracy and to an improvement of the atmosphere at work and in social life. Unfortunately, all of this collapsed after the Soviet occupation of August 21, 1968. After that date, I was delegated on behalf of director Jaroslav Beneš to the coordination committee in the town. As far as I can remember, its members came from the various companies in the city and its role was to cope in a dignified way with the occupation and to prevent the outbreak of chaos or direct attacks of the Soviet soldiers (who were stationed in the nearby garrisons) in the town. Members of the coordination committee were: Karel Ležák from Tatra, the secretary of the MNV Slaný, Radoslav Tauš, Laďan Roll for TJ, director Bernard for Baterie, director Benaru, the director of the ČSAD, Karel Horáček, the president of MV KSČ, engineer Nosek, doctor Horák and doctor Mašek for the hospital and a couple of others that I don’t remember anymore. The committee was a representative body that was authorized to negotiate with the occupants based on the authorization of the broader public. Sometimes, František Maixner, the president of the municipal national committee, would join us as well. The aim of the coordination committee was to avoid chaos and in this we succeeded very well. The threats of the Soviets, that they would erase the anti-occupant writings on the signs and walls with their tanks, didn’t materialize. The negotiators, Tauš and Karel Horáček, sometimes with the help of their interpreter Holík, were successful. At that time, a strong anti-Soviet group began to form, composed of the staff of the people’s militia in the ČKD. These people later used every piece of information they could get about our activity related to the coordination committee against individuals. Especially after František Maixner made a slip of the tongue, saying ‘counterrevolutionary committee’ instead of ‘coordination committee’. Since then, the group was called counterrevolutionary.”
“My wife was persecuted for my political views as well, because she lost her job at the ČKD. Maybe she suffered even more than me because she was rejected in the wood-processing works where the president asked the new president Houdek if he could take her. Of course he couldn’t. And so we were saved by the director of the Agricultural construction works, engineer Verner, who employed her in the transportation office. My views and the fact that I had been dismissed from the Party affected the studies of my daughter as well. She wanted to study at the technical college of the construction industry in Mělník but it was inappropriate for a daughter of somebody who disapproved of the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia to study. She had to go to a different school after she had been a trainee at the ČSD for a year. With the help of some friends, we managed to place her at the railroad technical college in Letohrad. Now she had to commute some 200 kilometers to Letohrad. The ČKD was very consistent in their effort. They couldn’t stomach that I made it to a leading position in the Agricultural construction works in the 1980s, so they would send letters to the management of the company because they had to find ways how to justify me staying at my post.”
Vladimír Procházka was born in 1938 in the family of an entrepreneur. His grandfather and his parents owned an inn, a shop that sold construction materials and coal and a freight company. The parents from his father‘s side came from Ledec, his mother‘s parents came from Polerad. Both lived for some time in Klobouky. In Klobouky, Vladimír went to school and later he went to a technical school in Kladno. His father was perceived as an anti-Communist element. After Vladimír graduated from the technical college, he started working for the machinery works in Plotiště nearby Hradec Králové as a construction engineer in the foundry. After four months of work, he was drafted to the military service and served with an air-force regiment in Piešťany in Slovakia and in the south Bohemian town of Bechyně. At the age of twenty, he married Helena Pištěková. After he returned from the military service, he started to work for the ČKD Slaný as a machinery technician. In the ČKD, he was the president of the ČSM. Four years in the Communist party helped him to become the technical secretary of the director. His career was terminated by the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Warsaw Pact in 1968. Vladimír was dismissed from the party and fired from work. The same fate befell his wife. As many others, he was able to get a new job with the agricultural construction works Prague first as an inspector of the construction mechanization, then as the head of the center of construction mechanization. In 1985, when he was finally allowed again to work in the district of Kladno, he left to ACHP Zlonice, where he was the head of transport and mechanization. After the Velvet Revolution, he was allowed to return to ČKD Slaný. He worked in the manufacture direction unit and finally became the director of the machinery works division. Since 1990, he has also been engaged in the communal politics of the municipality Klobouky and he is currently the mayor of Klobouky. He is also a functionary of the Social democratic party.
