František Samec

"Even ten years after 1968, a policeman came to me and said, 'Watch out, the 21st August is coming, we know about you.' They actually arrested me in 1969 when August 21 was coming. I just started working at the computing center. I'd been there less than two months, a complete rookie. Ant those two gentlemen came in wearing leather jackets. They said to me, 'Well, how about those leaflets?' I didn't distribute any leaflets, but as the son of a museum director, I figured it would be good to have them someday, so that maybe my children could read what we were doing in '68. So I collected them."

"Once a gentleman said to my father, 'The best thing would be to close the museum, it would save money.' And another memorable statement is when he wanted something from them, from the municipality, as this comrade told him, 'Comrade, there are more important things in this world than museums or culture.'"

"When they made a protocol with me, they asked me, 'Do you want us to take you back home?' I said, 'If you brought me here, then take me back.' 'Okay, then go sit in the car.' The young one [the State Security officer] went with me, and the old one stayed at the station. And the young one said to me, 'Would you like to work for us?' And I said, 'Well, I have this new job now and I like it.' 'Well, we also have computer centers.' I said, 'No, no, no, no.' So we were talking casually like that and suddenly he said, 'And pick better friends.'"

"Two gentlemen came and took me to the National Security Service office upstairs. There they interviewed me. You could see that they were totally unprepared. They didn't even know what to ask. Among the papers I had, for example, there was this one stating that there was not only Jan Palach, but also Jan Zajíc, who had self-immolated in some passage. That was not discussed much, but I had this paper regarding his case, how it all happened. And one of those State Security men, as he was going through the papers, said: 'How do you know Jan Zajíc?' You could see he had no idea what was it all about."

"We wrote an inscription on the town hall tower. I don't even remember what it said, probably that they should go home. The city council had to meet because of that – to decide if they would let us in, if they would give us the keys to the tower. So they let us in. The lady who was considered the gray eminence of the town hall was already waiting for us. We agreed that there would be a council meeting in the evening, and we would come in the morning after that, and either they would give us the keys or they wouldn't. So she was waiting for us, she gave us the keys. We painted the sign, which caused the tower to get a new coating in 14 days, which it needed a long time ago anyway."