Pavel Chalupa

“I didn’t know anything about the occupation. I remember that all we did in Varnsdorf was to exchange belts and cartridges with the soldiers for beer, which was good for us. When the boys came, the soldiers, sovetskaya armiya, they gave us badges, and that was enough for us and our games. That was our contact with the Russian, or rather the Soviet army. I remember how one time when I was walking with Mum and a colleague of hers down the main street – called Stalin Avenue, how else – I suddenly pointed: ‘Look, the Ruskies are there!’ The colleague gave me a slap, said those weren’t no Ruskies, but Soviets! That’s how muddled people were.”

“The worst thing I experienced was on 28 October 1989, on the anniversary of the republic, when they pushed us up to Hotel Europe and launched a massacre there. They dragged us out of the crowd by our hair. ‘Who was that shouting!?! Who wants freedom?!’ And they chose people accordingly. They dragged me by my hair as well. My police agent had an American Parker, he was a secret cop, robust, ginger beard, I can still remember him. The buses were parked so that no one could see from the outside, they formed a kind of courtyard. He grabbed me by the hair and mashed me against the bus, I had blood on my face, and I fell to the ground. I was lifted to my feet by a uniformed cop with a helmet, who kicked me in the butt, shoved me against the bus, and gave me several welts on my back with his truncheon. Every cop had his own prisoner, whom he beat and held by the scruff. Suddenly, their boss came running up from above, helmet on as well, and yelled: ‘Franta, Jirka, Pepa, come with me!’ My one let go of me, and I slowly drifted away. I saw Kuba Špalek in a crack between the buses, with his fist clenched, showing he was with me. I managed to escape the trap. All I know is that they beat them up proper and then took them out into the forests somewhere and left them there without their documents. They had to go for questioning and then sign a statement.”

“The students’ activity was incredible. We immediately set up various departments, independent sections, it was very structured. The sit-in strike actually gave functions to people from individual classes. We had – I can see it here – a strike committee, a financial department, a dispatch bureau – that was for dispatching student delegations, which travelled outside of Prague, on so-called ‘beauty rides’, to tell people what had actually happened in Prague. Back then Czechoslovak Television, Radio, and the press were still all under the influence of the ideology of the Central Committee of the CPC, and the misreported the situation in National Avenue, they didn’t report the truth, it was greatly distorted. The regime tried to hush it up of course, but what with the theatres joining in – I can’t actually imagine now how we managed it, there were no mobile phones, nothing, all the communication was through state lines, the witnesses remember they awful double lines and triple lines; but the phones to the theatres worked, and people phoned from schools, from theatre offices – we managed to get the theatre network up and running, and that enabled the truth to get out to people, about what actually happened. The travel groups were organised in the dispatch bureau, where they’d always give the address, where to go to, whom to go with, who was in the team, they got things to take, pamphlets and so on. Then we had an economic department, a reception – the school had to be guarded, there was a constant threat of militia or police incursions in those first days, then guards, staff – mostly girls on hand who wrote down, implemented our decisions, then the kitchen, the production at DAMU [the Theatre Faculty - trans.], the coordination, press, and information department; someone was at The Disc for long-distance correspondence, Michal Čech and his so-called Čech Chamber were in charge of posters and banners, then promotion and education. We were able to set up a system immediately. It only took two days.”