Jan Dytrych

"I was doing quite well, I got involved in the work of the campus council in Podolí, where I gained another circle of friends to talk to. And then came the envelope from Bartholomějská Street and I started to get into the reality of the machinery of the time." - "Why did they invite you? I read something, you mentioned that they [State Security] already in 1974 wanted you to spy on your parents who were attending receptions at the Chinese embassy." - "During that first one on Bartholomějská, they didn't discuss anything with me and just told me that some guy, his name is not important, would get in touch with me and start talking to me. It was a shock to me, I never told anyone at home, just in case, because I was aware of what it might mean. And I ended up meeting this guy. The first thing they wanted me to do was report what was going on in the halls of residence. They had questions like if Kryl played there. I said yeah, he's there sometimes... and these answers that didn't say anything. But from what you had sent me, I found out all the things I didn't tell them. It was quite surprising, because of course I knew the names, but I didn't talk about them. They naturally asked about some people directly, I said that they sat with me on the campus council and so on. But I never spoke in the sense of informing the State Security about what they were doing or not doing."

"After that, the only incident my father mentioned was that they had surrounded the airport and wouldn't let anyone in. The Russians did come regularly to negotiate, but Dad, until he got a direct order from the general staff, did not act in the direction of accommodating them in any way. The biggest thing he told us was that our soldiers were forbidden to fire, even though they were live and fully armed on patrol. So they were not allowed to shoot." - "Was that an order from Daddy or from the general staff?" - "They had that from my father because he was aware that as soon as they started shooting, the Russians would storm in and shoot everything. And because the Russians wanted to provoke it at any cost, so they started shooting at our soldiers." - "With live ammunition?" - "Live. There were no other bullets at that time. They shot the whole magazine. Dad said they shot everything they had, and the only result was that one boy got it in his leg. He said how perfect the Russians were - ironically. However, the Russians were showing a lot of casualties and they were blaming our soldiers, which Dad knew 100 percent that our soldiers weren't shooting there. In the end it turned out that the Poles were shooting at the Russians."

"The first thing was that he gave the order that all the kerosene tankers were driven onto the airfield so that the Russians couldn't land there, which he managed to maintain for quite a long time. I don't know exactly how many days, but I know that the Russians had to land at Ruzyne International Airport because of that. That was the first step. Then, of course, the next step that he took was that, in agreement with the agronomist of the neighbouring cooperative farm, they cleared out all the arm depots and all the ammunition, including that which they suspected was nuclear. Then it turned out not to be nuclear, but it looked like it. So they took it all to the shed of the local cooperative farm, which resulted in the agronomist then committing suicide, because apparently the state authorities went after him, and about a year later the man shot himself."

"That's a story, because there were few airmen, so these guys flew and powdered fields against the then great enemy - the potato beetle. That was one of the few stories my dad told us. When they were flying towards Lány and an old man was walking below them... or they saw an old man with small children. They flew around him, they didn't fly over him, anyway, the powder dispersed. And then they came back to the airport in Kbely, and there the guys in Tatra cars and leather coats were waiting for them, because they had dusted President Gottwald. That was such an incident, it turned out well. But it was one of the few stories my dad told us about what he actually did in the army."