"To stay in the party meant agreeing with what was being carried out. I wasn't able to do that. I hadn't given it much thought. I just realized I couldn't stay there. It was all about executions, deportations, scary raping. This experience really cannot be transferred. It wasn't as mad as during Nazi times but it was still terrible. One didn't know who would be locked up next. People were marked as traitors of the people and so in. Being a member of the party meant taking a part in the way this was happening. And I wasn't willing to do that."
"My dad told me: 'Go take a look at Wenceslas Square so that you know what an end of the war looks like.' So I went. Once there, I saw plenty of people running from corner to corner because German soldiers were passing through in line, shooting to the pavement. Just like that. It ricocheted and injured someone there. So, I was happy to make it back from there. This is how the uprising started. At Pankrác, it was fairly cruel. We escaped from our house and only returned in the morning of the 9th. We came to see that half of our house which belonged to my mummy burned down and that we had nowhere to go. We only had the clothes we were wearing."
"It was scary. Understandably, they started digging in my motivation - where had I found such courage or such cheek. How could I even think of returning a membership card of the famous Communist party. This haven't only happened in privacy. There have been hundreds of party officials at the school. And so they convened three meetings in a row where there were hundreds of avid communists on one side and on the other side one stupid guy who didn't want to be in the organization."
Milan Černoch was born on 24 September 1930 in Prague. He joined the Communist Party in 1947, considering the membership as a way to help build a new, better society. In 1950 he started studying at the Czech Technical University. Only a year later he decided to leave the party since he disagreed with the political processes and forced nationalization of property. He returned his party membership card which caused him great trouble. At school, public gathering were being convened where students disapproved of his decision. Attacks against him culminated by an expulsion from the university in spite of his great grades. He then worked in the Hutní projekty company and helped build steelworks „Klement Gottwald“ in Ostrava. Ever since 1965 he was employed in the Research Institute for Fuels where he was in charge of projects for the desulphurization of power plants. He retired in 1990.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
