Bohuslav Kraus

"I don't know exactly, I think it was '86. It was like that, at that time I was working at Dopravoprojekt as a relatively successful architect. Suddenly, Jano Budaj calls me that they found Tomáš dead and that it isn't known if he was murdered. It was a hot summer, they found him dead at a sublease in Dolné Hony. Tomáš had no longer a mother, a father, or any relatives, and they did not allow Ján Budaj to identify him, that he could no longer be identified. Apparently his corpse had been lying there for three weeks and also looked like this. At least, Ján was allowed to organize a funeral. He called me: 'Unfortunately, I know that you are an architect in Dopravoprojekt, but Tomáš was our friend. It's up to you to decide if you want to take part, I don't have to explain to you who will be there, ‘with such a smile. I'm saying ok, so I went to the funeral. I came to the funeral, there were a maximum of thirty of us, ten of them from Prague, the rest we were from Bratislava and then, there were about 150 police officers. In coats, pretending to be survivors, and cameras installed everywhere that filmed the entire funeral. Jano had his last speech before the coffin was launched. He said that he had to leave, so he left before that speech. Then he came back and said, 'I had to have him checked by the bastard standing in the back. I also had to have the music checked and then I only had to read what I had written. Because they said they would take us all right away, and I don't want to blame you. I didn't want innocent people to pay for it. ‘So he read it, the last song was, “Born to be wild by Steppenwolf”, then I couldn't listen to it for years. And we buried Tomáš, or what was left of him.”

"I was thirteen. There were several special events, but one of the most important - I remember, that the day before we watched TV in Zvolen, I was there on vacation. Grandma walked around, my grandfather and I watched, and she said, 'I'm telling you, the Russians won't leave this like that.' And my grandfather and I said no, that we finally have normal socialism. And at four or five in the morning, my grandmother woke me up with the words: 'I told you, the Russians are here, it's war!' And they drove us out, we went to buy flour, sugar, salt, etc. I missed them, thirteen years, puberty. I went to the square in Zvolen, the first transporters came, they were not there yet, the first ones came from Detva. As hippies, long-haired people, even thirteen-year-olds, we lay down or sat down on the road so that they would not survive. So they passed. They passed, started firing, so we ran away. Then I went home to have lunch, but I was well-behaved, and I bragged about the experience of being shot at us. So I was locked on the first floor of a family house so I couldn't run away for the second time. It was such an intense experience. Because I've experienced what it's like to sit when they go against armored personnel carriers, then tanks, and suddenly the shooting starts and everyone runs four-legged to the first bushes. I had a very intense experience from that. We still talked about politics in our country, so I already knew a lot about politics when I was thirteen. Our family talked about it in one piece. Even in Bratislava, my mother had very good friends of architects, artists and musicians. Meetings were held at our home, which my sister and I were always a part of. I listened and I had an idea. I even got the impression that I shook hands somewhere in the square in sixty-eighth with Dubček as a little boy-teenager.