Pavel Dukát

* 1934

  • "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."

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    online, 25.03.2021

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    duration: 01:18:13
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Pavel Dukát (en)
Pavel Dukát (en)
photo: Archiv pamětníka

Pavel Dukát was born on December 5, 1934 in Prague and lived in Smíchov with his parents and ten years younger his sister. His father worked at the post office and fought in Italy during World War I. He enlisted in the army in September 1938, and returned home after a few days to sign the Munich Agreement. In 1941, the witness began attending primary school in Santoška. He remembers the war years in Prague and the bombing of Prague on February 15, 1945, which caught up with him and a his friend near Palackého náměstí. He watched the Prague Uprising from the window of the house, as was the arrival of the Red Army. After the war, he started going to the renewed scout unit, he recalls the camp under Čerchov. After the war, the father was assigned to the post office in Jablonné v Podještědí, where the family moved. Pavel Dukát started going to Sokol here and practiced gymnastics. He graduated at the grammar school in Liberec. He then moved with his aunt to Prague, where he graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Czech Technical University. After his studies, he spent two years in the war, first at the radar in Trutnov, then a year in Opatovice nad Labem and the last four months in Sokolov. He then joined the project institute, where he was in charge of laying interstate and international cables and related projects. He also remembers August 1968, when he witnessed dramatic events in front of Czechoslovak Radio. He drove the forbidden publications in his car to Podještědí, which were being published in Prague at the time. He worked at the design institute until 1970, when he did not pass political checks due to his disagreement with the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia. The communists reassigned him to the position of construction leader in the field, so he traveled throughout the republic. During the laying of cables in Rozvadov, they were guarded all the time by two border guards with submachine guns. State Security monitored him because of friends from the West and later questioned him in Bartolomějská Street. But he never considered emigrating out of the republic. He experienced the Velvet Revolution with enthusiasm, took part in anti-regime demonstrations, including two in Dresden during 1989. Only two years ago, at an open day in the Security Forces Archive, he learned that he had been monitored by the State Security under the previous regime. Pavel Dukát lives in Prague.