Zdeněk Bárta

“When we started with my wife in the rectory, I said, 'Look, girl, get ready for us not staying long. I do not want to change my opinions, I give you three or four years here, and then I go to work manually. It lasted longer, until 1979, but as if I was counting on the fact that… of course I couldn't count on the parish being as brave as it had been. Thanks to the circumstances: it was the Volhynian Czechs who knew far worse repression from that Russia or the Soviet Union than the state security could have shown. So they laughed at their provocations. While elsewhere it was a destructive for those pastors. For example, they stood in front of the church, and every worshiper had to stand up. If this was going to happen in Prague or elsewhere, the faithful would tell me: ' Mr. priest, you know, well, yeah, it was nice, but we have children. You have to understand that you have to leave. Which happened to many of my colleagues, something alike. Well, the Volyns made fun of the cops. There was a man saying, 'You are shooting about the thirteenth part of the series of Major Zeman here, right?' The sister curator, a very noble old lady said, 'I don't wear an identity card to hear the word of God. I guess you will arrest me, don't you? ' They just mocked them in the face, yeah, which is an atmosphere that wouldn't be anywhere else.”

“Well, it was strange that some of my spiritual fathers like Freda Kocab and Jakub Trojan and Honza Šimsa attended. And they put on their gowns. I know that from today's point of view it may be ridiculous, but the point was that when the state power withdrew that person's permission to pursue spiritual activity - whether it remained spiritual in that sense of the church or not. And we are all - following their example, when they also took the consent from me - we seem to want to confirm this by dressing in those gowns. I don't hang much on it, I'd rather do worship without wearing it, but then it was such a matter of course, honor and prestige. So they came in - it was too much for the poor Synod senior Kejra. I remember exactly how poor a man was ... suddenly getting nervous about being a mess. He expected it. And now Freda Kocab - there is one picture, as he says, 'I will of course say a greeting.' So Fred Kocab had a greeting. Well, it was a mess. There was the State Security… surely someone was listening there because these people came there. And so it was clear: he has these friends, so we will probably be interested.”

“I read the water meters, that meant: I was wearing quite dirty overalls because I climbed into the sewers. And just that day I walked around Litomerice Square, where the big houses mostly had water meters in the shafts. So: lift the heavy hatch, climb into the shaft, climb up, write in the book, close the hatch, walk next door. And this is what I do, and in the middle of the square was a large gathering of angry Czech people protesting against American missiles. Of course out those people were there of obligation. So they stood there. And now many of them knew me. You wouldn't say how terribly shy they were! How they just did they were not there at all. Because they were stupid... paradoxically, I was in that submissive position, I was handicapped, I was the dull one, who climbed through the sewers. But they were ashamed of the men with ties. They were rightly ashamed of course, for at that moment they were serving as a facade to the regime.”

When they fired Jan Tydlitát from the faculty because he prayed for Svatopluk Karásek in the church in Martin in the Wall we took it rather emotionally. That was the trial case with the Plastics, Sváťa was in custody, and he had an intercessory prayer. Well, he was punished for that. Which is disgraceful because praying for imprisoned is the direct command of Jesus. The very fact that the faculty was forced to interrupt his studies for a year was shameful. We were writing petitions back then.

On May 1, we formed a five-member group, the Association for the Defense of Democracy during Majáles festivities. We decided that it was necessary to demonstrate it somehow. So sometime around May 17 we organized a demonstration in the Old Town Square. We were so cautious that we put it first in the newspapers, because at that time the newspapers were competing more democratic. So, in every possible newspaper it was published that there would be a demonstration. Then we went to the National Committee and there we said we were going to get a permit, but let them be careful, because it was published in all the newspapers. Strangely enough they allowed us the demonstration. So we went there and thought it would be a mess, I was just 19 years old. To be sure, I took an article by Karel Čapek called Why I am not a Communist. And as we came to the Old Town Square we found out that someone had sounded the whole area, built a grandstand, and there was a television present. And now I climbed up on the podium in horror, I read Why I am not a Communist, and then it went by gravity, because people who were locked in the 1950s climbed on the podium, and it was a terrible mess, we even received a note from the Soviet embassy.

Although someone had cut our cables with an ax. It was still a bit wild. It was a revolution in something, because we came to the District National Committee and said: ‘Guys, you quit, and if not, there will be a strike. We'll have Mr. Kolbaba here to show everyone where the toilet is and how he acts. '