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Oldřich Škácha (1941–2014) was a Czech documentary photographer and dissident. He graduated in photography from the State School of Graphic Design in Prague. In the 1960s he worked as  a photo-reporter for the magazine Svět sovětů (The World of the Soviets, 1964–1966) and his photographs also appeared in other Czechoslovak periodicals. At that time he also collaborated with the Barrandov film studios (1962–1966). After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by troops from the Warsaw Pact, he lived for a short time in Germany and in France, but then he returned to Czechoslovakia. During Normalization, however, he was not allowed to photograph officially. He specialized in portraits of figures from Czech culture and became famous as Václav Havel’s trusted photographer. He documented the life of the dissidents, in particular Charter 77. His photographs have been exhibited in many countries.

Jan Šmarda is a Czech microbiologist and cousin of Czech poet Ivan Blatný. He kept in touch with Blatný even after Blatný’s emigration to England in 1948. After Blatný’s death in 1990 he sold the poet’s papers to the Museum of Czech Literature. In 2013, he published the book Ivan Blatný v mých vzpomínkách (Ivan Blatný in My Memories) in which he described Ivan Blatný’s life and memories of him.

Grgo Šore (Seget Donji, February 15, 1915 - ? 2000) was a construction technician and a Croatian political prisoner. After the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), he served as an officer in the Croatian Home Guard. In the summer of 1942, due to disagreements with the NDH policy which gave Dalmatia to the Italian occupiers, he was decommissioned at its own request. After this until the summer of 1944, he worked as a construction technician on the construction of the embankment along the Sava River and then went to Travnik, where he wanted to re-join the Home Guard. He had tuberculosis and was forced to undergo treatment at a hospital where he awaited the end of the war.

Given that he did not take part in activities against the Partisan Movement, and his brother died in the Partisans, Šore continued to work in socialist Yugoslavia as a construction technician. In the Construction Department of the Travnik County National Liberation Committee, he worked on reconstructing buildings destroyed in the war. After the abolition of the Travnik County National Liberation Committee in 1947, he became director of the construction company Vlašić. He also received an offer to become a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The offer was accepted, but out of fear because he thought he might encounter problems if he had rejected the offer.

However, before formal admittance to the Party, and immediately after the publication of the Cominform Resolution in June 1948, the Party's lost confidence in him. In the spring of 1949, the State Security Administration launched an investigation against him, and he was arrested in June of that year. According to Šore, the motive for the investigation and arrest was his informal conversation with an acquaintance on the subject of current political relations with the Soviet Union. After his arrest, he spent three months in a Sarajevo prison, and in September 1949, with a group of prisoners from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, he was among the first to be sent to the prison camp on Goli otok.

He spent three years in the prison camp, where he experienced the most brutal methods of political “re-education.” As a construction technician, he participated in the design of the camp’s buildings, but he was not given special treatment as a result. Due to harsh physical labour, starvation and psychological abuse, he again succumbed to tuberculosis. After unsuccessful treatment at the prison camp hospital, he was transferred to Sarajevo for treatment in 1953 and was soon released. Although he felt like a second-class citizen, he was able to get a job in Travnik. He had steady employment until his retirement in 1975, and he even served as director of a carpentry company in Travnik.

Even so, Šore felt humiliated and marked, and at the beginning of the 1980s he decided to write down his memories of Goli otok. Among the several variants of his manuscripts, the last version of his memoirs, which he wrote in 1998, include explicit descriptions and drawings of the torture he had endured. His manuscripts also testify to the arrival of Aleksandar Ranković on Goli otok (Interview with Peić Čaldarović, Dubravka). The arrival of the chief of the Yugoslav repressive apparatus on Goli otok suggests that the idea of opening the camp had to have come from the highest party leadership led by Josip Broz Tito (Previšić 2014, 94).

Šore concluded his recollections with the words: "Let there be no vengeance for to these events. I forgive, but I cannot forget and I hope that this will never happen again." At the beginning of 2000, the Croatian History Museum bought its 16 documents from the period 1945-1998 from his son Stjepan (Interview with Peić Čaldarović, Dubravka).

Professor Jindřich Štreit is a Czech documentary photographer and teacher. He was born in Wallachia and studied at the Pedagogical Faculty of the Palacky University in Olomouc, graduating in 1976 with a focus in art education. He started taking an interest in photography thanks to the influence of his father and Professor Jan Bukovjan, who he met at university.

After graduating, he moved to Rýmařov, where he taught at the local elementary school and later became its director. Since 1974 he has led the gallery in Rýmařov and since 1998, he has also led the gallery in Bruntál. Since the early 1970s he has devoted himself to portraying life in the village, photographing portraits and Roma life.

In 1982, he attended an unauthorized exhibition of unofficial visual artists. He was then arrested by the secret police and sentenced to 10 months with a suspended postpone for two years. He was convicted of alleged defamation of the republic and its representatives. The state police seized his negatives, his positives and his photographic apparatus, and he was not allowed to photograph. After returning from prison, he was not allowed to continue his pedagogical activities. This led to more intense cultural activities and photography.

During the period of normalization, the old school in Sovinec, where Štreit lived, served as a shelter for many unofficial artists. Štreit organized informal exhibitions, concerts and theatre performances. Sovinec has become a meeting place for independent artists from across the country.

After the revolution he worked at the Bruntál Museum and since 1994 he has been a freelance photographer. In 2009 he gained a professorship at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

Jindřich Štreit organizes exhibitions at the Sovinec Castle every summer, has put on 1100 exhibitions and many collections, including exhibitions at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the International Center of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, etc. He is also the author of about 30 publications. Several films have been made about him and his work is represented in the most significant collections. In 2006, he was awarded the Medal of Merit for Class I.