“She’s a tough girl. She had a hard time with two young kids. I know that’s the way it was, but she never reproached me. The good thing was that her parents would help her, as would my mother and her brother, and I have to say my co-workers helped too by giving her some cash on paydays. Jiří Fišera would get her something every month. She was on parental leave at the time and money was tight, so she sometimes worked at an infant home on weekends. One party member who knew what I was in prison for made it possible for her. People never reproached her and were very kind. It was tough on her, but the people around her never reproached her, nor did anyone reproach me when I came back.”
“The SNB [police] were there on that day [21 August 1970] from early morning and interrogated the younger boys who worked with me. They were scared and wouldn’t speak up at all. The police left around noon and we stopped work at 1 pm. It was possible at the time – we worked with ordinary machines that you could just stop and restart later. It would be a problem with the modern-day CNC machines.” – “How many of you were at the shop?” – “About 70.” – “Did everybody know about the moment of silence?” – “They did; they had been informed. But foremen and CPC members would come by, and when they saw this, they were really angry with us. After the moment of silence had passed, we turned the machines on and got to work. Nothing happened.”
“On 21 August 1969, I put up a black apron with the invasion date and the word ‘occupation’ on it at my workplace. I got away with that. My co-worker František Kovář approached me in the spring of 1970 and said: ‘Your opinions are good; you can be trusted.’ He gave me leaflets to copy.” – “How did you copy them? With a typewriter?” – “Yes, I typed them. At the time, there was nothing but carbon paper and typewriters. The fifth copy was not very crisp. I don’t know how many leaflets I typed, 60 or 70.” – “What did they say?” – “They said that the 21st of August 1968 was an invasion, and incited people to passive resistance – to avoid going to shops, using buses, etc. We distributed the leaflets in the surrounding towns riding my two-seat Pionýr motorcycle – to Horní Branná, Klášterská Lhota, Hostinné, Lánov… I remember those towns.”
Stanislav Prokůpek was born in Jaroměř on 6 April 1941. His father served in the Czechoslovak Army after World War II but was dismissed without giving grounds in 1949. The family was forced to move to Jilemnice several years later. Having completed his primary education, the witness joined the State Labour Reserve vocational school and went on to work at Rico in Vrchlabí. He completed his technical high school studies part time. He met his future wife Libuše when he was serving in the military; the two married in 1965 and raised two sons, Aleš and Luboš. The witness disagreed with the political trend following the Warsaw Pact invasion and put up a black flag at his workplace on the first anniversary of the invasion. One year later, he took part in distributing leaflets that condemned the occupation and incited passive resistance; at work, he initiated a moment of silence for the victims of the invasion at his workplace. The communists arrested him over those activities in 1970 and sentenced him to two years of imprisonment. He served his sentence in the Žacléř prison, working in coal mines. Having returned, je joined the same company again but was under constant surveillance. He joined the Confederation of Political Prisoners after the Velvet Revolution. The Ministry of Defence bestowed an award on him in 2014 for his involvement in the ‘third resistance’. He lived in Jilemnice in 2022.
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!
