Elena Letňanová

"I still have that ID, I looked so devastated there. There is the exact date when I entered Italy. They put me in a room with a Polish girl, where we slept on straw bags for two months. Those straw bags stung terribly. But the feeling that we were free to escape from that prison, from that catastrophe, was so cleansing that I almost kissed that Italian refugee soil. I was really happy I escaped, to be free. It was an amazing, euphoric feeling. At the same time, you realized that now you are nobody. You mean nothing. You are a young woman, who was nothing, not even a daughter, the biggest treasure. I lost my home, my books, paintings, mother, sister, family and my job. Now you almost don't exist. You are on the verge of becoming dust. You have to survive it somehow and take care of this child because she is not guilty of anything. That was my decision."

"I was really looking forward to it. Knazko, Budaj, Zajac, Bútora - all my former friends worked on it, they took the first, most important step. For doing so, they deserve respect and utmost thanks. They didn't have to do it, some cowards could have done it, and they could have fucked up. But the first phase- the deposal- was done. Because of that, I respect them and I won't allow those insignificant people, who were cowards or even joining the Communist Party at that time, and now managed to gain power, to judge them."

"It was one of the greatest deeds in my life because it was associated with the character, with human nature. Secondly, it was the immature predecessor of November 1989. There was no Solidarity at that time, we only had the legacy of the Hungarian Revolution from 1956. There was no Gorbachev yet, no Glasnost, not yet Brzezinski, who already in 1985 predicted that this socialist camp would fall apart. And it really happened. Because of that, I claim that it was an immature predecessor. There were people who had the courage to say that the procession for Palach was not only a panychid, not a sign of solidarity with Prague, or with the highest moral deed of Jan Palach, but was at the same time the biggest demonstration against communist power, targeted against specific people."