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Interview with Mr. Hubert Procházka
What do you remember about your youth?
I was born December 27, 1930 in Brno in a family of psychiatry professors whose name was
like mine, Hubert Procházka. My mom was also a doctor, but at that time a housewife. I have
a sister who is two and a half years younger then I, who is a doctor of Pathology in Prague. My
dad was shot in 1935 by a madman at Zelný Market in Brno. Mom was Czech, so we moved
to Hradec Králové where we lived until 1946. Then my mother was a head doctor at the Janské
Lázně spa working with radiology. We lived there until February of 1948. Then they fired
her and for about two years she was without a job. Then she started working in the physical
therapy department in Pardubice. During that time we lived in a family house in Heřmanův
Městec 1 . That house was established and remodeled by my grandfather.
How did you struggle through World War II when you didn’t have a father?
My mom had a normal doctor’s practice as a neurologist so we made it through the war
quite well. I went through the five classes of primary school then I started a classical eightyear
grammar school, which I had to postpone for a year. Since I was born in December I went
to school a half year earlier. I lost a year after primary school and then at the beginning of
the occupation, the Germans were using a principle of Nationalsozialistische Arbeitpartei and
they thought I was a member of the Bourgeoisie, so I wasn’t accepted to the Grammar school.
However, it was changed again in another year, because at that time, changes were happening
quickly. I graduated in 1950 and I went to study medicine for one year at Hradec Králové.
Then they threatened us that they would change the Medical Faculty to the Army Academy so
I transferred to Prague.
Do you have any special memories of February 1948? Were you politically active in anyway?
I was a member of the National Socialistic Youth and a member in scouts. I was active as
a scout since the age of seven. I was with the water scouts, but then in 1947 I got out of it a little
bit, because I left Hradec Králové and moved to Janské Lázně the contact was limited and
in the border land there isn’t this tradition. My mother wasn’t a member of any political party,
but more or less she was cooperating with The People’s Party. She was giving lectures to the
party about various medical fields, mainly about physical therapy. So we could say that she was
more or less politically active.
How did you get to the National Socialist Party? Was it your decision?
It was strictly my decision because the rest of the family was Christian. I voted for the National
Socialists because I was convinced that it stood furthest on the right.
In which year did you join?
In 1946 we moved from Hradec Králové because my mom traveled to the United States to
study polio for over half a year. She received a scholarship from the American Red Cross and
from one of Roosevelt’s foundations. Roosevelt himself had polio, he was practically working
1 Heřmanův Městec – a town in Eastern Bohemia, in the region of Chrudim.
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