Eva Mudrová

“Colleagues showed and explained me how the broadcast worked. Editors went to factories to make reports. They sent them to us, and we presented them. It was our task to encourage people to stay calm and to not attack the Russians because they had guns, and somebody could get hurt. Colleagues also told me that the Russians were moving in the building and that they wanted to know where we were broadcasting from. The technicians did the thing that they took them into an empty broadcasting room. Meanwhile, we were broadcasting from the studio where radio plays were recorded. There were not signals. They said to the Russians that if we broadcast, the light had to be on. So, we broadcast, and they were moving in the building with machine guns."

“People said in the middle of 1955 that the television transmitter in Hošťálkovice had been constructed and that Ostrava would also start the television broadcast on New Year´s Eve in 1955. The television studio was part of Czechoslovak Radio at the beginning. That is probably why I, as a presenter, and actor Lubor Tokoš whom I had known from many recordings in Ostrava Radio, were invited for the first broadcast from studio. I said a few sentences: ‘Good evening dear friends. I welcome you to the first broadcast of television in Ostrava. Yes, it is right. Even Ostrava now has its own television transmitter and you are real TV viewers. It is a little bit unusual, isn´t it? But you will get used to it.‘“

“Once in the morning my father whispered to my ear: ‘Eva, get up, the Russians are here. They came riding horses.‘ I ran quickly to the village square. The Russians were really there, people greeted them. One officer came riding a horse to the yard of the farm where we lived and talked to us. He also told my father that he knew the Czechoslovak anthem. Dad was surprised and the Russian started to sing ‘Kde domov můj‘ beautifully. That was my greatest experience of the end of War."