Lumír Zeman

"It took place in the evening... Because it was always on a Friday, a concert took place in the evening, then you went either to the second mill, or to the first mill, or to the third mill, which was still standing. And of course it continued there, playing, singing, drinking a little. So there were many experiences. And with Jarek Nohavica, one such... Well, I won't say the whole thing. However, we really liked the party we were there. And he was supposed to play in Valašské Meziříčí on Saturday. Well, on Saturday morning, when we somehow woke up, we went to this pub for lunch and then we were saying: 'What are we going to do to...' Because no one wanted to. Jarek didn't want to. So we came up with... We sent a telegram to Valašský Meziříčí: 'Stop. Accident on the way. There is no performance.' Well, but then it spread throughout the republic that Nohavica had a car acciennt and that he was unconscious and, I don't know, over there somewhere... So it wasn't true. So this is the kind of experience that we had, among others... There were a number of them, because I used to see Jarek here quite often. He wasn't even allowed to play elsewhere at that time. Then again, he wasn't allowed to play here. Once, when he was playing a song about rockets, and it was not only about the bad American ones, but also about the Russian ones, Mr. Zelenka happened to be there, and he gave me a relatively free hand, but then he banned us again for some time."

"And in the morning we woke up and tanks everywhere, tanks all around. Not around the camp, but everywhere we heard that they were simply in Prague, they were everywhere and that they had occupied us. So, of course, we tried to get home in the first place, but there were really tanks everywhere on every road, at every intersection, and the Russians just wouldn't let us go anywhere. And we didn't go until the second day after the occupation, because we couldn't find a bus, and at that time... So we went all the way through Cheb, and I don't know why, we were in Rakovník when the Russians were trying to enter the barracs, Czech soldiers they didn't let them go, it almost resulted in a shootout. We were stuck in a column there. Well it was... We cried. We were just aware that we had lost an awful lot, and we had no idea if we would ever have the opportunity to breathe freely again and have the opportunity, as it were... Because our youth, or rather the perspective of that youth, was essentially destroyed."