Milan Rotter

"One fine day came August 21, 1989. About a week before, the State Security came to our yard, they caught me, and I had to sign... at first I didn't want to... that I would not move in the cities - for fourteen days around August 21, the anniversary of the occupation - that I would not move in cities with over a hundred thousand inhabitants." - "Where did they take you? What did it look like?" - "They took me to Police [nad Metuji] to the service station, where the State Security had its room. I said I wouldn't sign it, I played the hero. They told me they would sort it out in their own way and keep me there for fourteen days to three weeks. So I changed my mind, I wasn't planning on going anywhere, so I ended up signing that I wouldn't be in cities like Hradec [Kralové] and things like that. I got over it. Then they caught me at home learning English in the garden, they thought it was suspicious and they opened a file on me."

"I found myself in a situation where I went to Wenceslas Square at 3 p.m. and waited for my classmate 'by the horse'. A Public Security officer came and wanted me to leave. I insisted that I had to stay there because I was from the village, that I would get lost and that I was waiting for my friend who was coming in a little while. In the meantime, he checked my ID. I took it as a routine check and we left. The next day, it was all over in Prague, the water cannons. But we didn't even know who [Jan] Palach was, we only found out there. We didn't even know that there was a State Security, we thought it was just criminal and public, it was news to me. I was in Prague for five days, we ran around, the State Security officers were chasing us, but we were young, so we escaped and we still had fun. We saw dramatic moments when they dropped a water cannon into the crowd, where there were strollers. We saw that it was pretty rough. The officers just waved their hands and said, 'Clear this place!' So they were clearing it and everything was falling down."