Milan Lasica

“The truth is that not always, but quite often before the performance our organizer came, called us somewhere to restrooms, where he told us, we should be aware of such a person present in the audience. This used to happen many times when performing e.g. with Jana Kociánová. It is easy to laugh at now, but to live it through was not amusing at all. You always had a felling someone was standing behind your back and keeping an eye on what you said. And whatever you said, he may have twisted and interpreted in his own way. And that was very frequent, of course. You know, it occurs today as well, but you cannot be harmed anymore.”

“I remember all kinds of different social events of the so-called middle class that lived back then in Bratislava, and not only in Bratislava. Those were mainly people supporting the Democratic Party and obviously, they were happy that the Democratic Party won the elections in 1946. However, not even after two years, the communists took over with a great oppression. At the end of 1947 the Democratic Party had been discredited, etc. So we could say that the Prague events of the February 1948 happened in Slovakia yet few months earlier. I remember listening to the speeches in radio. There was a big meeting in Reduta and Široký gave the speech, who was, I guess, the Chair of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia back then. Simply, the situation began to be quite dramatic, reaching its peak in takeover in 1948. That´s when people from our social class happened to be evicted to the countryside. It was called Action B (B standing for byty in SK = flats in EN; note ed.). The people were evicted partly for being marked as politically unreliable, but also because they often lived in very interesting villas below Slavín, where the winners of the new ‘revolution’ wanted to live as well.”

“It seems comical, but I remember my wife´s father, who was a teacher. He used to teach during the Slovak State and coincidently, he taught Slovak language, too. I saw one of the textbooks he owned. Whole pages were crossed out from there, since the book was from times of the Czechoslovak Republic. So during the Slovak State, certain information weren´t appropriate, and the same thing continued to happen during communism as well. For example, in the beginnings, when I attended the elementary school, we had pictures of President Beneš and Masaryk on the walls. All of that had to go away, and of course, neither crucifix could be hanging there. It was exchanged for President Gottwald´s picture. Moreover, we were being taught during the history classes, that Beneš was a man towards who we were supposed to have a negative attitude. I remember being examined on this topic and I said in such relevance: ‘Mr. Doctor Beneš’ and my teacher corrected me: ‘Just say Beneš’. So he was even deprived of the ‘Mr. Doctor’ title (literally saying; ed. note).”