Václav Drhovský

"I received this internal notice saying that since I had participated in an anti-state protest, I would be reassigned to a workplace according to the needs of the company. De facto fired from my job, but not from Škoda. There were a few sites where nobody wanted to work because there was no money to be made there. There was also a sentence: 'If you live in a company flat, you will be evicted from it. If you do not comply with this notice, you will be turned in to the state prosecutor's office.' I complied and worked at Machine Shop 1 for seven months."

"The currency reform started on 1 June 1953 and affected my life profoundly for a long time. The night before the reform began, President Zápotocký assured the nation that the currency was firm and nothing would happen. It was not true. I recall repairing a machine on 1 June when suddenly a crowd of people in overalls came to the locomotive plant with banners saying 'The government has deceived us' and so on. 'Come to the square,' they shouted. I and a few friends - see, girls also played a role in this - joined in and went to the square. I don't know if you've read any history book. There were some of the biggest protests in Plzeň. There were as many people as there were in Budějovice on May Day. We came to the square and nobody knew what to do. We were staring at each other. Every now and then someone said something, I don't know, maybe that reinforcements were coming. We stood there until almost 2 o'clock. Just before 2 o'clock the soldiers made a swarm on the right wing from Veleslavínova Street and started to push us out. We didn't resist because we wanted to go home. There were Tatra 101 trucks ready and a cordon of people. Only later did we realise that it was those who had walked among the protesters and made sure to remember those of us who were the most aggressive. They pointed at them and they had to get on a Tatra and were taken somewhere. We went towards Škoda. We thought we'd go through the first gate and to the locomotive plant. Maybe I should have mentioned that the Škoda plant was so large that two buses used to go there. The locomotive plant was pretty far back, so it took at least 20 to 25 minutes to get there. But there were militiamen waiting for us at that gate. They grabbed us and asked, 'Where are you from? Who is your foreman? Which workshop are you from?' They checked over the phone. When they were done checking, they let us go."