Jan Dvořák

"Now imagine, I met there, as usual, the boys from Liberec, I won't even say the name, only Slávek, I think it was Slávek. He took the brick and the car drove, it was a small, you could say a tank, like a truck with a tank, with a giant barrel. And he threw the brick into the driver's window. The driver's side window is broken in that photo. And he, it got into that driver, I can see it with my own eyes, it got into that driver, and he, I don't know if people will understand it, the commander of the car, who is sitting next to the driver, is a soldier who is like a commander of the car. He jumped up, took a machine gun, I don't know what he would do. But then two guys jumped in, I can't say cops, two members of Public Security, that's what they were called Public Security cops. The one grabbed him by the machine gun, squeezed it like that, and the other one took some kind of spray, they already had pepper spray, in the eyes, and in the eyes of everyone, including me, who was staring there, he sprayed it into my nose, into my face. Well, I don't know what happened next, because I had to wipe myself before I rubbed my eyes, so I don't know how it all happened. Well, you see the picture of me there, and then I just stared at it again. And it continued again, the tank backed up, drove off, everything left, the truck, I don't know what happened with it, literally, I don't know, I'd be telling lies about how it was with him."

"There were a lot of people standing on the bridge, everybody, those people were looking from the bridge, looking at those tanks and those cars, how it drives up and turns around the post office, right in front of the post office and around the town hall and down through Moskevská street, to the former Gottwald square, now Horáková street, and it went to Prague in that direction. So I looked at it and those people were all standing there on that bridge, looking, shouting and whistling and this. And some guys who were under the stairs, there were stairs according to the theater, I don't know if they are there. There were stairs and the boys ran down them, so I didn't see that, but I already saw the two boys jump on the tank because the convoy stopped. It always drove, then drove faster again, then stopped, that's just how those tanks, those cars drove, because... I won't go into it. And the guys jumped up and they had a bucket of whitewash and brushes and they covered the periscopes, if you know, that window, that's the periscope in the tank. I don't know what it looks like there, I'd be telling lies. And they whitewashed it with that whitewash. As best they could, they ran up to each tank and whitewashed it like that. And of course, people were prodding them into doing such things, how else could people defend themselves or fight, it was stupid, it didn't make any sense. That's how they made troubles for the drivers in the tanks. I know that the tank driver can look through some windows, but they whitewashed it, the windows, the tank's periscope, and now everyone laughed at it. And now imagine, and that's the worst thing about it, and that was greatly exaggerated years ago. The tanker, what could he do? He opened the hatch at the top of the tank, whether it was the driver or the commander, I don't know, it doesn't matter anymore, and the first thing that happened, he opened the hatch and took out a machine gun from the bottom. This is how he holds it in his hand, he hadn't even put his head out yet, and this is how he pressed it, he started shooting. Now of course people, that was the worst part, those people were leaning on the railing of the bridge, they were looking at it from top to bottom and now everyone was running, some of them lay down on the ground and now the panic was terrible. And now there - it used to be the national committee, the barracks right next to the bridge, I don't know what's there today, a more modern house, an apartment building, and they shot up the whole barrack. You could see that for a long time, the lines from those bullets, everything there was shot, sharpened. Well, people were running away. I note, I saw it like this. I didn't see anyone got shot or killed there. If a bullet ricocheted off and killed someone, I don't know, I didn't see, I confess."

"It was nice, it happened to me twice, it's an experience, it wasn't anything nice, but it was also nice. That the Public Security cordon was waiting for us in Turnov. It was surrounded, the exit, the entrance and the exit, that is, you entered the hall, you went through there and you were simply locked, in Turnov. The station was so busy, they picked us up, threw us into buses and we went singling the beets all the way to Doksany! To JZD (unified agricultural cooperative) Doksany, that's as far as Litoměřice. And we were there all Saturday, all Sunday, and on Sunday evening they took us to the station in Turnov. It happened to me twice. But I have to admit that we got food and drinks, that the people from JZD gave us food, drink, everything, but we had to do the singling of the beets there, imagine that. Well, yes, but you did it, you didn't even say a word, because I was an apprentice at that time and someone who went to school, they were calmly told: 'Look, if you're not going to hoe and single the beetroot here, then we I'll write this to the college or school and they can expel you too.'' Well, you got scared, that was normal. Today there would be restrictions on freedom and this crap, it used to be like this. They never hit anyone, or that you'd get hit with some kind of baton, crap, crap, you'd have to get into fight or something. But no one did, no.'

"There were boys, and girls too, but mostly boys who simply went out into nature, and we as Liberec people and specifically me, you could say, it was such a boyish thing... You can say that from the age of fifteen to sixteen until the military service, I kind of went on hikes. We just got boots, military boots, mostly půllitry they were called, such tall leather boots. Some guys who were lucky and got it somewhere, they had, it was called a batlik, I think. It was like a coat, that's what the English soldiers had when England had colonies in India, they had these batliks there. So just an old military outfit, plus tele (a calf) on the back. It was a rucksack, I think soldiers had it during the First World War, it was a calf, one on the back and one on the stomach. It was the kind of rucksack that it had like fur, the lid had fur on it, you could say it was from a cow. And that was normal military clothing, like equipment. And then there was the so-called ueska, it was like this... it was a blanket rolled up and put in a case like this, the legionnaires in Africa had it, at least I think only they had it, because Mr. Mládek, who was in legions in Africa. He gave it to me and I had it too, a piece like that. And we always went out with this on Saturdays, because work was still done on Saturdays, and on Saturdays there was a meeting at the station, and there were dozens of us boys, those hiking boys, dressed like that, as they say, with tufts at the waist, a kettle on our backs and a wooden spoon, that's how we used to go to for that hikes. Well, we went to Turnov to Český ráj."