Miloš Hájek

„I was already sleeping. My wife woke me up: ‘Russians have crossed the border.’ We dressed up and drove to Senovážné square. Czechoslovak parliament had there an emergency meeting. Then I drove with Křen and Kural to Strašnice to pick up Jaromír Litera, who was the second highest party representative in Prague. When we returned, the first armored cars were just arriving. In the street they shot a young railroad man to death. We looked at each other: ‘What else?’ – ‘Let’s go to Dubček!’ But when we came at his office, two Russian paratroopers were already standing in front of the door: ‘No way!’”

„We were disappointed, because we were not given weapons. We were getting an illegal journal World Against Hitler. We had distributed it to reliable people. Our first real action happened after the Red Army regained Rostov. We made stickers with ‘V’ sign, hammer and sickle and a sign ‘Rostov’. Each of us has covered one area of Prague. I and Jiřina were supposed to paste up the stickers in New Town. At the moment I was going to paste up the first sticker, I have spilled everything on the ground, so big was my fear. But Jiřina behaved perfectly: ‘Everything is all right; you will overcome it.’ I really overcame the fear after some time, but now it was clear to me how naive we had been, when we had thought we could get weapons.”

„When the transportations started few members of Hasomer Hacair decided not to go. They have tried to survive the war with false documents and asked me for help. Of course I have agreed and we started to seek false documents. I told members of my cell what is going on. During the war we successfully created new identities for seven Jews. Five of them survived the war. We stole personal ID, erased it and filled in the needed name. It was our most effective activity of this period.”

„I strongly believed in communism. I had no doubt about Stalinist theses, including the way how the opposition should be treated. I needed someone who would break my view that the crushing of opposition in Russia was necessary for the socialistic progress. I maintained this opinion until the year 1956 when I have heard the secret speech delivered by Nikita Chruscov. From his speech was absolutely clear that the liquidation of opposition was a crime. I needed to hear an official authority – in this case it was the First Secretary Chruscov – to say: it was not necessary to crush the opposition.”