Jana Krychová

"I had a nice experience at the Johnny Cash concert. I've been to two of them. He was here in Prague twice with his family band, so to speak, and I remember the Sports Hall, where two of his concerts took place. I think it was in '75, I don't know exactly now. You couldn't buy his record in a shop anywhere, there was no poster anywhere, there was no advertisement that there was going to be a concert, but the hall was totally packed and sold out. People just knew, they managed to get tickets. He was on stage with his band. He had his son there, June Carter Cash, his wife, and so on. There was a cordon of policemen under the stage, standing there side by side like that, making sure that, God forbid, a fan didn't run up to get an autograph. People had American flags hidden with them. When you pulled out an American flag, a cop came running up and grabbed you. He took you outside. You couldn't show any sympathy for America, an American band or Johnny Cash. You just had to sit there like a fool. You couldn't give any big ovation or show any big sympathy because they would pull you right out of the crowd. You just stood there and watched the crowd behave, watched the audience behave."

"We went to the so-called pre-premiere cinema U Hradeb. If you know it. It was a bit of a luxury cinema. Tickets there cost twenty-five crowns, whereas in a normal cinema you paid one or three crowns. It was a kind of luxury cinema, where they screened Western films, which were no longer distributed any more. So you only saw it once, and then it wasn't screened anywhere. I remember at that time we went with the whole group to see The Wonderful Men on Flying Machines. That's what I remember now. And there was an election that year. It was a communist election. You probably know how elections worked back then. It's like elections in Russia today. You can easily compare it. It was very clear who was going to win. There was no election, no opposition, nothing. So it was just a circus. There was a newsreel before every film. Now Štrougal was there, throwing the ticket. At that time, I started commenting on it inappropriately and loudly. A complete stranger tapped me on the shoulder from behind and said: 'Well, madam, after the film we'll talk.' The cops were stationed wherever there was a large gathering of people. They were in the meat queue, at the hairdresser's, in the cinema, in the theatre. You had a cop everywhere. They were everywhere. He didn't have to show his face. You didn't have to know about them at all, but if you made yourself known, they let you know. At the time, I remember he didn't know I had a bunch of people with me. We'd go to the cloakroom to get coats, and he'd be standing behind me all the time. He was always watching me. So I said, 'I've got to get away somehow. What now?' So my crew and I kind of winked at each other. They quickly took my coat, they were in the front. So I grabbed my coat and ran away from the cop. But I still felt like he was behind me. I was jumping from one tram to another. I know I came back from the cinema that night at midnight. My mother was completely grey. 'Where are you? The film is long over...' I said, 'Mummy, a cop was after me.' It was a very unpleasant feeling, but that's how it was; they were everywhere."