Pavel Dukát

"That's the kind of thing that bothers me quite a bit, that there's always talk at these celebrations and others about how the radio staff broadcast and how they informed the inhabitants. And actually my colleagues all over the country have more or less contributed to that and it's not even known. Back when Minister Hoffmann had those radio lines shut down... Just all over the country there were radio lines, first of all, from the individual studios, it went to the other studios, and then when it was processed, it went to the individual transmitters. So if those modulation lines were shut down here, all radio broadcasting would stop and nobody would hear anything. The only way they'd be able to make calls is from the window. And it was at that time, when the occupation started at night, that the first soldiers came to Ostrava, and there the operators of the amplification station heard it immediately. And they had already figured out why Hoffmann had had the modulation lines turned off, so they telephoned all the amplification stations on the service lines and it just spread all over the country and everybody turned on the modulation lines. So the transmission of that radio more or less worked gradually, actually, until then the soldiers took over those transmitters. They took some of them earlier, some of them later, but then there was nothing to actually broadcast from. But under Žižkov, actually under Parukářka in Žižkov there was a huge anti-nuclear bunker, it's still there to this day, whether it's still working or not, where all the important telephone cables, the intercity and international ones, were routed, and it was more or less a kind of a backup site. And they, of course, the Russians knew about it, under the Warsaw Pact, they were given all this information about where everything was. But there was an entrance, I think from Jeseniova Street, there was a heavy gate, about half a meter high, which was actually opened by an electric system, normally you couldn't open it by hand. And they knew about this entrance, and they wanted to get in, but it was closed. So then they hitched up a tank, which the residents of the opposite houses saw, and they tried to break the door down with the tank, but of course they couldn't, so they left it be. And the emergency exit and actually the alternative entrance was from Olšanská Street, actually at the bottom, from the Olšanský Square, there used to be a pond there, they dried it up, there is a kindergarten there today, and there was a normal door like the door to the house, but it was armored, and that was actually the entrance where the staff more or less usually went, so they didn't have to go around and so on. And they didn't know about that one. So actually, at that time, all the broadcasts of that radio from there, they sent it by cable to Nuremberg, where actually from Nuremberg it was then spread further around the world, so that the world more or less learned from that broadcast in those first days what was actually going on here. Then somebody from the defence department, who started to cooperate with the Russians, told them that there was actually this entrance, and so they then got in through that entrance and the staff that was there had to clear it out and that was more or less the end of it."

"I used to go to Sokol for training, actually since 1945, as soon as the Sokol was restored there. So I quite had talent for that sort of thing, so I enjoyed it a lot. I used to go as a pupil and then when the juniors had an exercise class after us, I'd still stay there. And then of course we'd prepare for the mmeting, we'd buy stamps for this book, and then that would pay for the attendance. I remember that we got on a train in Jablonné at that time, but those were the freight cars, the so-called cattle cars. We had mattresses on the floor, so we went to Prague, no normal carriage, and we didn't care, it was an experience for us as boys. And we lived in Lupáčova Street in the school in Žižkov, I still remember that, and then I remember the parade, and then those moments when you ran through the Gate of the Athletes and practiced there, and it was just amazing." - "And you were about fourteen years old, did you perceive the political situation?" - "I did, of course I did. We perceived Gottwald sitting there all pissed off. That was interesting too, I had a toothache at the time and there was a mobile dental surgery, so they took me to that surgery to have the tooth treated. And there was a reporter from some magazine who took a picture of me, and he said, well, what kind of care is there for the trainees, that it's taken care of, well, they'll send me a picture. And I don't know for what reason they didn't send me the photo of me, but they sent me a photo of Gottwald and Marta [his wife, trans.] sitting on the platform, so I still have that photo."

"In Žižkov, I don't know exactly what it's called now, the hill, it's behind Olšanská, so the whole hill is undermined and there was a huge anti-nuclear shelter, where there were telephone exchanges, where all the interstate and international ones were terminated, and long-distance cables in one place. Twenty-four hours were served there, there were services, in case of war, that everything would be transferred there and that it would all be governed there. And from that side of Žižkov there were gates, so you could drive there by car, even with such a smaller truck, there were some corridors some so big that the car would have passed there, but the gate was half a meter reinforced concrete and it had to be opened by some hydraulics, a normal person would not open it at all or move with it. And then the people across the house told us that the Russians had come there, they knew exactly that it was there, because under the Warsaw Pact, our army had to give them all the documentation of everything that was there. So, they knew it was there, they knew there was the entrance, and they hitched a tank behind the gate, but they didn't move at all, the tank kept going, but they didn't open it at all."

"Well, when it took off, we went home, but we couldn't walk to the Vltava, because there was gas burning in the street on the corner of Palackého náměstí and it was so hot that it couldn't be avoided. The flame went to the last floors of the houses that were there then. So, we had to get around Dittrichova street. We wanted to go along the embankment to Jiráskovo river bank… And we wanted to go to the Palacký Bridge, but there was a Palacký Bridge, there was also a bomb, so they didn't let us through it, and what I remember from it, and I still remember that a man was lying there and his tie smouldering ."

"We had a cottage near Liberec, and we actually went there even then, it was about another week. Because an awful lot of different newspapers, leaflets and so on were printed and people in Prague had a lot and they knew what was going on, they were informed. But outside in those villages, they knew nothing anywhere, so we always packed the car with leaflets, put it under the seats everywhere and drove it out. And then there was no highway, none al all, so we drove around Kbely and there we were stopped by the Russians, a patrol, there were about ten of them. Now the two stood in front of the car with submachine guns, we had a son who was lying in the back of the seat, and we all had to go out. So my wife and I got out, they were still kept their submachine guns, now they started searching the car. We had a Škoda, so had to open the trunk, so I did in front and he refused, so I opened the back trunk, he looked like crazy, that there was an engine. Well, then they looked in the front, but fortunately they didn't look under the seats, so they didn't find the leaflets and the newspaper."

"One day he loaded us like this, unloaded us in Vinohrady and we went slowly down, and when we were somewhere near Charles Square or in front of Charles Square, sirens started to sound, but then no one went to the shelter, because the planes always flew over, the alarm were over. Well, when we were on Morán, we actually went down from Karlova náměstí to Palackého náměstí, so I was with my friend, we were on the corner of Václavská and Na Moráni streets, which is the first street on the right when you go down to the Vltava. So suddenly we heard such a whistling and such a strange sound, so we thought, because they fired cannons at those planes, so they shot down a plane, and suddenly there was a terrible blow, now I felt a gust of really hot air and a huge flash, and it threw me away, actually a pressure wave, on the wall of the house, there was a cafe, which is actually there to this day. There, glass spilled out and two bombs fell, a hundred meters or less from me. One to Emauzy and the other one further down a little lower to Palackého náměstí."