“To begin with we thought that Dubček would stay and it would be okay and [the Russians] would perhaps leave. It ended up the way it did. In 1969 Gustáv Husák came to office, and things got rolling. They ‘ousted’ our commander and all the big brass, and we ‘followed’. Of course we were angry that it [the occupation - ed.] had happened, so we were out a bit ‘tipsy’ and we went to the army lodgings and sang: ‘Unhappy Svoboda’s little state, unhappy Svoboda’s state. The Russians took us and left us just Brezhnev’s protectorate. Soviet soldiers came along, only hunger in their eyes, they gobbled everything all up and left us Brezhnev’s protectorate. When we’re all free again, our state will be free too, the horny devil will come to devour Brezhnev and his protectorate.’ And the major was awake, he heard us, found out who we were, and ratted us out to the counter-intel.”
“We were in Sereď for a year and in Bratislava for another two. They kept nagging at me there to join the CPC because I had a good understanding of things. I knew a bit of Marxism-Leninism. Without realising what I was getting myself into, I did it, but then as soon as I came to my unit I found that things were not as they seemed at all, and so it started irritating me. Although my unit was a rocket guard brigade, there were such dolts there, you just know it, and one of them even ratted on me later on... Well, and that’s why they discharged me.”
“At half past ten or eleven o’clock, I’m not sure, I arrived there and suddenly found we were being occupied by the Ruskies. We didn’t know about it, not a clue. Well, what could we do, nothing. Svoboda [the Czechoslovak president - ed.] told us we mustn’t fight. So we at least handed out live bullets and grenades and prepared to dig trenches around the barracks. Well, but they didn’t let us do that either. The new barracks in Rokycany was surrounded by fields back then, and they drove up and deployed there – tank, gun, tank, gun... All the way around; they even dug the guns in. And when I observed them with my binoculars, I could see they were standing by the guns with the lanyard that fires it held in their hand, and if someone had given them the order, they would have blasted it straight into us and the whole barracks would have gone the way of the dodo. There were three sections there, some nineteen-hundred soldiers in all. I think they would have blasted us. When I saw that, I got a throb and said to myself: ‘Boys, I’m done with you.’ And that’s when my troubles started.”
Pavel Koutenský was born on 21 January 1944 in Nové Město na Moravě. His mother died when he was ten years old. From then on his father provided all care for the house and his two sons by himself. Seeing that the family could not afford greater expenses, after grammar school Pavel decided to join the army as a full-time soldier. He became a Communist at the same time. During Prague Spring 1968 he openly expressed his support of the new political direction. After the occupation in August 1968 he was stood before a military court and convicted of offending the dignity of the republic and its representatives. This was followed by dismissal from the army and expulsion from the Party in the 1970s. The witness was then employed as a manual labourer. He remained under State Security surveillance until the Velvet Revolution.
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!
