'Living in Dublin, it always has been racist' - RTÉ documentary hears how man had part of his ear bitten off
Shop owner Milan Hosek, who had his part of his ear bitten off during a racist attack on a Dublin street, is among those featured in new RTÉ2 documentary Trauma tonight.
Father-of-three Milan goes to Mater Hospital’s A&E department carrying the severed part of his ear in the hope that surgeons can reattach it.
He tells viewers that he was attacked by two men who started abusing him saying things like: “f**king foreigners in our country”.
“I felt really bad when the guy started spitting at me and telling me I’m a foreigner in his country", he tells viewers.
One man then urged his companion to “bite” Milan’s ear off and they attacked him.
Both men ran off after the incident. During the attack, they also told Milan they knew where he lived prompting him to ask the Gardaí to watch his family home.
Dr Sinead McArdle, consultant in Emergency Medicine at the Mater tells viewers that: “to remove a part of someone’s body and the force required to take the whole pin of an ear would be unusual”.
Milan and his wife Joanna, who hail from the Czech Republic and have lived here since 2003 having opened a city-centre bicycle shop.
In the documentary, they talk about the racism that they have experienced, with both of them attacked within a 20-day period.
Milan also describes how Joanna was attacked when she asked two men who started having sex in front of their home at 6pm to move.
"They started being vulgar and aggressive. As she was coming back she got smashed against the wall and beaten up. With her fists, she was just able to protect the baby but not herself,” he says.
Joanna adds that living in Dublin “it always has been racist”.
“I was really afraid. I don't even want to go out with my kids, I haven't been going to the playground. I was really scared because this happened during the day not during the night time. So I was really frightened and just after a short time he had been attacked also,” she says.
