Jiří Chadima

„Celá ta spolupráce byla v tom, že když přišly nějaké papíry, tak jsem zavolal Pepíka, on přišel, vyzvednul si je, a jednou za rok k vánocům, bylo to asi dvakrát, mi přinesl nějaký košík." - „Prý jste prováděl prověrky lidí nominovaných na spolupráci. Je to možné?“ - „To bylo jen jednou. Volali mi, že ke mně někdo přijde a hude se tvářit jako zákazník a já ho mám mezi řečí okouknout, jestli je schopný, nebo ne. Celý ten rozhovor proběhl tím způsobem, že jsem potom ohlásil, že je mdlé inteligence a k ničenu se nehodí.“

„Vím, že byl nějaký dotazník, těsně v roce 1945. Všichni členové zpravodajské brigády jsme museli odpovědět na dotaz, jak si představujeme republiku. Jestli samostatnou socialistickou republiku, to si pamatuji přesně, tuto formulaci, nebo jako předmnichovskou republiku, anebo jako připojenou k Sovětskému Svazu. Všichni, kdo jsme byli z grafické školy v té zpravodajské brigádě, tak jsme zaškrtli ‚samostatnou socialistickou republiku.‘“

“Those air raids, we kept waiting for when it start for real, but nothing happened. Until one time, when we were on our way back from Fidlovačka, loaded up with all those bags. And suddenly the sirens started blaring. We were in Slovany, by the Botanical Garden. Of course, we reckoned we wouldn’t take shelter, that we’d carry on to Charles Square. The sun was shining, it was quite a nice day. We’d sit on a bench with a view of our cart. That’s where we’d wait out the air raid. But a cop came charging out at us and shooed us into a house. We were sitting on the stairs, when suddenly - I still have that visual image - as with a gust of wind, scraps of paper blew down the street, a black dog ran across the road, lightning struck. And then some people - because nobody used the shelters much, no one believed [the alarms - trans.], people stayed at home - so now they hurtled inside and swept us down into the cellar. One old lady in the cellar started to wail: ‘Where are the boys from that cart that’s burning outside?’ Well, the nonsense we had been transporting was so easily flammable that it had burst into flame. The cart was made of tough wood, it was a bit blackened and burnt, but functional. And back ten, when we clambered out, we saw for the first time what was war. We carried the wounded on our two-wheeler to an improvised sick bay, which was somewhere beyond the little park by the Ministry of Agriculture, in one of those streets, I don’t know what it’s called, Gorazdova, I think. It was a German sick bay. At the time, the elder and supposedly more talented daughter of Josef Lada [a famous Czech artist - trans.] died during that air raid. We took the wounded there for as long as there were people to take. The road onwards was blocked, you could only walk. So we left the two-wheeler in the big courtyard of some office, the gatekeeper agreed to keep it for us there, and we climbed up the Nusle Stairs. We came back to the place. Everyone there already knew about the air raid, so we had to stop by there, and so they welcomed as if we had been born again. At the time we thought: We don’t understand this way of waging war. The houses were smashed up, Emmaus Monastery was burning, and further on, just a stone’s throw away, military transports were crossing the rail bridge, unperturbed. Allegedly, we didn’t know it at the time, but allegedly, some experts were to have confused Prague with Dresden. Things were coming to an end, we didn’t travel much any more, although the cart was burnt but usable. I know that back then before May Day, we visited the personnel officer, the cadre officer at his place. We said: ‘Major, sir, we won’t do the trips any more, we have other things to worry about now.’ He didn’t bat an eyelid and just said: ‘Boys, just be careful, so you don’t cop it pointlessly somewhere.’ That was his goodbye.”

“Well, nowadays it’s a bit of a fashion to claim that it was some kind of power struggle between two factions in the Communist Party, but according to my experience and to what I saw in the streets, it really was a nationwide phenomenon. The street debated, people suddenly felt closer to each other. No one could stand the phrases we had been fed. A kind of slogan of the year sixty-eight was: ‘Don’t quote, speak for yourself!’ Well, and of course, the people at the top who weren’t afraid to go into debates, they were in the fore and had the most sympathy from people. Take Goldstücker, for instance, he visited the Faculty of Law, which was very hot grounds for left-wing people. I know [something - ed.] about that, I was the chairman of one of the four organisations of the Communist Party in the Fine Artists’ Union. It’s well known that the artist unions were later declared a hotbed of the counter-revolution. One more thing that isn’t talked about today: one kind of centre of events in sixty-eight was the District Secretariat of the Communist Party in Prague 1. It was kind of due to the fact that Prague 1 wasn’t just responsible for the street committees of Prague 1, but for some unknown reason it was also assigned all of the Party organisations of the artist unions and nationwide institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences, the various ministries, and so on.”