Hana Konečná

“We slept in a student hostel. People who had come from Prague, who had emigrated, were staying there. Lots of people were staying there, students, and so on. We stayed there on the last night before going home. Then people found we were going back to Czechoslovakia. They brought us their letters: ‘Please take this to X and Y. We’re afraid that they wouldn’t get delivered.’ I got around maybe forty letters.”

“The day after we wanted to set out on another trip we had planned. But, suddenly, I came to my sense and asked myself if what was going on was really possible. Cars were driving by honking their horns. Newspaper sellers were yelling: ‘Prague est occupé! Prague est occupé,’ that Prague had been cut off from the world. I told myself that it was impossible. Even now I still cry thinking back on it.”