"So the day before Christmas Day 1982, I boarded a Prague-Munich wagon that was completely empty at first glance. I couldn't take anything with me, it was a bit like the expulsion of the Germans, to put it in a copy, I only took one bag with a Czech-English dictionary and a few personal belongings and a bottle of Stará myslivecká to have something with me on the trip. At the border, they searched me like a little disgustingly, they didn't confiscate anything for me, not even the booze. On the German side, we passed through a corridor on which stood soldiers with submachine guns. It stopped on the German side, and such a gentleman, probably an intelligence worker, came to the compartment. He asked me what I was, so I told the whole story, he looked like he knew everything anyway, and he said, 'And how were you released from Czechoslovakia?' I gave him the paper, he actually spoke Czech this German guy, he looked at it and said that he saw it for the first time in his life, that he had never seen it, that someone from Czechoslovakia would be released with a piece of paper with a stamp on the back. "
"Contact with this group actually determined all my other life decisions. I experienced a lot of all kinds of inconveniences like kicking out the Plastics concert in Rudolfov, I guess it was called, near České Budějovice. You probably know that from the movie ID card, if not, go see the ID card. Fortunately, I was not beaten because I was one of the few who had his own car there. When the trouble started to approach, I loaded Brabenec, Hlavsa and Kabeš into the car and we left. "
"I was present on the twenty-first of August 1969 at demonstrations that were probably in several places in the republic, but I was in Prague. On Národní třída, where the writers' union was based, where my father went to see something, and I went with him. There I witnessed fat guys in gray uniforms dispelling the demonstration, approaching people with armoured personnel carriers and firing. I thought I was going crazy. I hid, how the National Theater is, how the arcade is there, not the new building, but the old building, the new one has not been there yet. I crouched in that arcade, transporters were driving around and shooting. I felt that I was no longer understanding everything because some Czechs were shooting there at the other Czechs.
Martin Schulz was born on June 10, 1954 in Příbram. His father was a journalist, so he spent his childhood at Dobříš Castle, which then belonged to the Union of Czechoslovak Writers. In 1969, he witnessed a brutal suppression of a demonstration on the anniversary of the August occupation. In the same year, his father Milan Schulz emigrated, leaving Martin and his mother in Czechoslovakia. Due to his father‘s escape, Martin was unable to study at college. In the 1970s, he became friends with members of the underground group The Plastic People of the Universe. He was close to dissent and faced persecution by the State Security, and was eventually forced to emigrate in 1982. He started working for Radio Free Europe in Munich and later became a political commentator. During the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, he reported on events in Czechoslovakia as a journalist. He returned to his homeland permanently in 1996. He worked as a journalist, but also as a musician. He lived in the village of Doubice in the Děčín region, where he also served as mayor for some time, running a music club there. Martin Schulz died on June 23, 2020.
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!
