Karel Hádek

"It was actually a celebration of the Red Army's anniversary. They made a party in the cinema in Semily, and we made a demonstration there. Nothing organized, it was after the occupation, I think in January 1969. Quite a few people got together. So for example we posted a sign there: The Center for the Study of the Cold Flame and the Creeping Counter-Revolution. The state police recorded us there, so they chanted: "Hide the camera or I´ll shit in it." I managed to get [Ludvik] Vaculík inside to make a report, which I was very glad because it was for the invited only. The state police and cops were angry at me, so they organized themselves in the cinema once, stormed out, and started mocking me. It's an interesting thing, I would never believe that when a person is in danger, what kind of power can be fought with. Three or four cops went to me, and I trained them like dolls. When five or six fell on me, they were lying on the floor trying to torture me; in my eyes and nose they used pepper spray, which is something crazy when you are held up, but still they had troubles keeping me down. The Russians saved me in the end. They rushed out shouting, and began to tear the cops off me... They dragged me into the cinema, and then they made me a corridor so I could leave, rather stumble out as I was beaten up badly. So brain concussion, double vision and this sort of fun. I spent some time in the hospital. Well there was a criminal prosecution of the police, of course it was stopped, while they also accused me of hooliganism and I served eight months in prison for it."

“I had some leaflets printed out, which later had an echo in the courtroom as well. We were riding a motorbike with Arne Vaněk, I was driving, and he was throwing out leaflets in a Russian convoy that was stationed near Jilemnice, near the river Jizera. Our only luck was that the road was bending there because as we were passing by he threw those leaflets among them, they flew out everywhere, we disappeared in the road curve, and the only thing we heard were the machine guns getting ready and rat-tat-tat-tat, firing shots.”

"Pioneer, Pioneer, to Pioneer, those are the things that a man does not know anything at the age of six. If everyone joins in, one would be sad, if they did not take him along. I do not remember exactly how it was with the Pioneer, I just remember I joined in. And again, I would say humorously - I was madly grateful for two occasions. That was, when Stalin died, because in Semily they kept a piety for him, and the People's Militia opened pork cans... they poured lard and pork from the canns on bread for us. So I thought that Stalin could die more often... In a while Klima [Klement Gottwald] knocked the batons, so they opened up more cans. Otherwise, the Pioneer was rather uninteresting."

"I served at the chemical unit in Liberec. It was such an exciting time when it was all falling apart, so there was a different way to get along with the professional soldiers. In some way, it shaped man. Those guys were psychopaths who believed what they said. They had to have some changed genetic code, when I say it humorously because a normal person would not believe it. Sometimes I heard passwords, it was crazy. There may have been the first contradictions between how one perceived the world, and between what they were trying to get into your head. It is hard to judge if there has been a breakthrough situation. There was one more thing when these things were discussed, a dictatorship. Man basically could do nothing, allways with communists, or with SSM, or I do not know what. It was always guided as a child, by the hand showing the way. And a young person dislikes, when someone says, "You're stupid, you do not know, what you want. You do not know, what's for your own good, we'll show you. It's a red book."