Pavel Polka

"I confessed to that, and the comic situation occurred when the policeman in the shorts of a sitting boy asked, 'vivat Dubček', what was that supposed to mean? I said that's my opinion on this man. Then he said with an angry voice and facial expression that 'vivat Dubček', and he had written something 'in Latin', with a comma above I, and Dubček was written there. I said that “something in latin” is “vivat Dubček “. And he told me we knew Dubček, but who is Vivat? Because I told him it was a latin name for 'long live' or 'for glory'. Then I smiled, hovewer with sausages from the baton on my back, but I smiled, because for me he was a stupid man when he asked me something like that. That's when I really started to hesitate that what are the people in the tie (from) whom I, the child, may have had a better overview of public affairs than the man in the tie who decides whether I will exist in civil, or I'll go to prison. But it was a certain defiance, a certain childish, naive pride, one in his thirties or forties, would be twisted and he would have built it all that way, but I said 'gerój'. I used to talk so far, they haven't beaten me with a bat since, but I told some of my friends that listen, when they hit you with a bat, it's not so bad. The first, second and third strikes are terrible. You feel it and it hurts a lot, but then you don't feel the others. Then you are just in such a shock and you just hear some bum bum bum. And it's almost like music. Simply, the whole body gets so shocked that you really don't feel pain. You only feel punches, punches, but you don't feel it as an absolute pain, just as they beat you. "

"I remember that the only big conflict was not the poster we put in the square, but once we wrote, even in russian alphabet, 'zachvatčiki domoj', and we doubled the poster on wrapping paper to make it a little stronger. We tied wire loops attached to all four corners and decided that ... From the 1950s, before entering to Želiezovce, our town, there were arches of triumph. When it came to May 1 or some demonstrations, in front of the villages there was a complete connecting strip over the state road, as if such a metal, welded arch of triumph and there was: Welcome First May ’and things like that. We are - I have to admit that it was my idea - I told a friend: let's go, we'll take it there and fix it over the road in the evening, from Štúrovo, so that when people will come, (see) 'zachvatčiki domoj‘' that we are against the russian occupation. It happened and really, in the twilight one went up one pillar, the other went up another, they were criss-cross, and we went like little monkeys and we brought the poster up, with wires, we pulled it out and we tried pin down. It wasn't over, all our work, that we (would) fix it completely, because some wires weren't fully attached yet. Suddenly I noticed that from Štúrovo, about four kilometers straight, we saw a column coming. So we noticed, and very quickly, that it was bad, and we saw that lights were coming out at regular intervals, it was already quite dark at that time and it was getting black. We registered that the Russian convoy of Russian trucks (soldiers) is also coming. So we didn't finish the attachment, the poster was already there, but of course it was so weak. But as soon as we quickly slipped and shouted at each other, go down quickly, because the Russians were going, so we went down, there was no time to run away. It was in an uninhabited part, about three hundred or two hundred meters behind the last houses. So we just lay down in the gulley and waited there until the Russian column of about thirty trucks passed. We noticed that the Russian troops had slowed down, so they saw something hanging above them, and I have a feeling that of course they read it, and we felt that they were moving a little more cautiously towards the city, but we were lying and we did not move in the gullies and waited until the last truck passed. And then we tried very quickly, but with a small heart, to get home through the side streets.”