Tomáš Zmeškal

* 1954

  • "I remember that because I was in Počátky - we have a house there that is glass, above a big crossroads. We were in Austria before August with my parents and there I got a Colt as a toy gun. And I didn't know any better than to stand in the window when the tanks came by and shoot at them with the gun I had. And of course, I got a couple of slaps from my grandfather that morning because it was very dangerous from his point of view. If anyone had noticed, it could have ended badly. So that's my experience in the year sixty-eight."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Praha, 30.10.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 57:27
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Lessons must be sought in history

Tomas Zmeskal
Tomas Zmeskal
zdroj: archive of a witness

Tomáš Zmeškal was born on 3 July 1954 in Prague. He lived with his parents in Prague until the age of six. Then he grew up with his grandparents in Počátky, where he started compulsory schooling. After graduating from high school, he graduated from the University of Economics in Prague. He then worked as an economist in the foreign trade company Kovo. For business trips abroad he needed a service passport, but the condition for its issuance was joining the People‘s Militia in this company. He refused this and left the company. He found further employment in the music publishing house Supraphon, where he remained until the Velvet Revolution. He felt the fall of the regime very strongly, participated in almost all demonstrations, and felt the unification of the nation. After the revolution he left Supraphon and started his own business. He learned about his mother‘s horrific experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp only after her death from a video recording she left behind. No one in the family had any idea of its existence. He and his first wife raised a son and a daughter. In 2023, he was living in Prague.