Peter Neuwirth

“There was a red star shining on one of the Prague palaces in Wenceslas Square, and the crowd was shouting: 'Put out the star!' And it happened, in about 10-15 minutes, someone turned it off. At that time, I remembered what my aunt used to say: 'Once more the star will shine and then it will stop'. I felt very relieved, and I told myself that now is the time; something needs to be done immediately. So I took all the proclamations and posters at hand, and the next morning I went straight to Marcel Strýko. There was already a group of his friends sitting in his apartment in Košice and we agreed on founding the Civic Forum.”

“It was in the morning - our uncle was visiting from Bratislava - when my mother shouted: 'The war is here. Wake up!' First, we wanted to accompany our uncle to the train station, so that he could return to Bratislava. Only, the trams were not running through the square anymore because the invasion troops were passing there. We witnessed the desperation of people who, with their bare hands, tried to prevent the soviet troops from passing. They say that there were also Hungarian troops, however, we only saw the Soviet ones in Košice. People were trying to prevent it in all ways possible. They were throwing stones, bricks and the like at the colonnade. It was the place where an unfinished hotel Slovan, now Hilton, stood. I saw those people covered in blood, the shooting and it was the day, or the moment, I realized that the communists had actually betrayed us.”