Vladislav Krop

"I led a group of pensioners from the Hnojník forestry plant, I was commissioned, and there was a trip to Prague planned. So we arrived in Prague on about the 19th or 18th. We stayed there, walked around the sights like we had planned. Well, one visit was to a pub called U Fleků. So we were at U Fleků and of course there was drinking. Black beer and so on. That was on the 21st of August. We were all leaving and my wife and her friend stayed there. We had one of these foresters, he was a terrible prankster. Bearded and like, he took no shit from anyone, he was a joker. And he got drunk and his wife got drunk. And my wife couldn't get him home. We all left. I was pissed. We went to check in and the my was gone. So I went to bed and finally my wife woke me up and said: 'Listen Vláďa, the Russians have arrived.' I thought I was going to beat her. I said, 'Well, you've been drinking at the U Fleků with Mrs. Tyšler all this time, and finally you come to tell me that the Russians have arrived.' And she said, 'No, the manager of this hostel sent me to wake you up.' And the Russians have arrived... Look, there were already tanks rumbling under us, as we were staying at the Lenin street."

"I had a problem at school with joining a Pioneer troop. My wife was already a model Pioneer, and I still wasn't. I was a Scout and one day I came to school and saw that the lockers we had in the Scout clubhouse were suddenly in the school. So the Communists abolished Scouting, and I will never forgot that till the day I die. So that relationship with the people's democratic establishment was very bad for me. I had a problem with it even afterwards in that forestry school and so on, but it didn't affect my life very much. However, I became very disillusioned with it."