"Well, one day after January events my father didn´t come home from work in the shop. We had no idea why and his employees said that a car with men in leather coats had arrived and taken him away. About a year, maybe more, we didn´t have any news about him. If he is alive or dead. It took about two years when he had probably been in custody that he was brought to court in Karlovo náměstí square. We, his children and our mother, were allowed to be present. I remember that an accusation of sorts was brought out, then there were speeches and finally the judge dressed in a gown absolved our father saying there was no proof against him. But at that moment another man behind the table stood up. He was a lay judge. He didn´t agree with the verdict and we at that moment of utter happiness that our father was freed, were thrown into a terrible disappointment that he would once again end up in prison. And yes, he was in prison for two or three or maybe even four years. And because he was never sentenced and there was never any accusation brought up against him, it was more than clear that the point was that when a boss of a shop was in prison or in custody, a sequestration over the property was declared and a confiscation followed. And this was precisely what happened in a year or two. We lost absolutely everything. My mother stayed alone with her mother and my sister and me earning money as a cleaning woman. And my father when he was finally released from prison, in order to get to know the working class – as they said then – was sent to work in the Poldovka steel works at Kladno for many years and later worked as a driver´s mate and driver of removal vans. The only thing I remember from these days was that I thought it very strange what happened rather often. When granny served dinner, it was only for my sister and me and my granny and mother said they had already eaten. Of course, I had no idea then what it meant."
"Spring 68 was a wonderful experience. We set up an organisation called The Union of Young Scientists and our aim was to try to change the preparatory stage of future scientists radically. Because in that time it was Russian and Scientific Communism, Marxism-Leninism but no science. Our aim was to introduce English and professional subjects, my God, we are supposed to work in medical research or not? There were people from other faculties too, from the whole university. On the whole we were about twenty. We met, wrote up the programme and tried to change the research assistantship content. And all of a sudden the 21st August was here. If you want to know how I spent the day, I´d refer you to the Kaufman´s film based on the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera about a young doctor and how he goes through the night, which is based on my own story and does not appear in Kundera´s novel itself. The phone constantly ringing in the hall and the house shaking under the weight of the tanks in Mostecka Street and more such things. And from this night the unbelievable period of the unity of the nation was born. I went out into the streets and stayed for some two or three days. I met a friend Pavel Brezina, a TV documentarist. At that time, TV cameras had enormous batteries which had to be carried along. So I spent the next three days carrying the batteries for the friend who was shooting the scenes from the occupation. Whenever we finished shooting the twenty minute film, we gave it to a first foreigner asking him to pass it on to the BBC. And these documentary shots of the occupation that Kaufman used in his film is the very footage where I was standing sweaty with the heavy batteries. When I, not having the faintest clue, after many years and already living in Vancouver, went to see The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I couldn´t believe my eyes as this was my own personal experience I was looking at."
"Here I´d like to change the subject a bit and refer to my medical experience. You know, I had a feeling that all the 50s and 60s until the Prague Spring, our country suffered a diagnosis that could be called encephalitis lethargica. It means you are alive but as if not living. This illness was first described in America in the 1920s. Simply said, people lived for decades as if they didn´t perceive their whereabouts. They were in a kind of suspended state of unconsciousness when neurologists discovered a substance called Eldopa. They used it with the patients suffering from lethargy. The patients woke up suddenly to life and had no idea at all of the past 40 years. They woke up and resumed living. And I had a feeling as if the whole Czech nation was given the Eldopa in spring 68. So, we woke up. The days right after the occupation were unforgettable. The vacant space at the Dětský dům (the Children´s House) where people met, discussed the situation, where we talked about anything and made up plans, was wonderful. Something happened to me then. After about three days we were delivering leaflets with the number plates of cars confiscated in Prague by the Russian Army and used as civilian cars to pick up people. We happened to obtain these numbers, we duplicated them and in thousands of copies were bringing them from the printer ´s office across the bridge to Revoluční Street. It was an old two-seat Aero car with hundreds of leaflets between us. We were stopped by the Russians. They were rather Asians than Russians and I guess they didn´t even speak Russian. We tried to communicate with them but it was impossible. They dragged us out of the car and positioned us against the wall. And ironically, next to the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In front of us there was a soldier with a sub-machine gun aimed at us, with his finger on the trigger, impossible to communicate with. We were standing there for some seven hours. Without a chance to go to the toilet, no idea what would happen to us. The soldiers with guns alternated every two hours. After about six hours, an officer appeared and said in Russian that we should leave quickly and the car had been confiscated. So, we left the place. It was na incredible experience of total helplessness. By accident, this was the time when Dubček and Smrkovský returned from Moscow. In the moment when they started to say: “Disperse, Obey, There would be enormous and unforseeable consequences“, the people at the vacant space at the Dětský dům started to argue. Some were saying: “Let´s disperse“ some were saying : “No, they were being manipulated, we shouldn´t obey them.“ To my horror I suddenly realised that the unity that had been there for the first five days, was no more. Secondly, I still felt the utter powerlessness of the fresh experience when standing in front of a man with a gun and not being able to communicate. And thirdly, I learned that the Union of Young Scientists would be considered a subversive organisation. At that moment I realised that I didn´t want to follow in the footsteps of my father and share the fate of our family and that I had to leave. So, at the end of August I illegally crossed the border at Železná Ruda. The Russians made a mistake then. They had old maps that´s why they didn´t occupy the town so I finally ended up in Vienna."
Josef P.Skala was born as Josef Skála on 15th August 1941 in Lesser Quarter, Prague. For generations, his family owned grocery near Charles Bridge, his father extending it into a large-scale business specializing in gourmet coffee and having all the property confiscated after the February 1948 coup. He himself ended up in prison and after his realease he worked in the steel works Poldovka near Kladno. Josef managed to complete his studies at the gymnasium in Hellichova Street where his lifelong affection for theatre started and then went on to study Medicine. At the end of August 1968 he emigrated. First to Sweden and in 1969 to Vancouver where he has been living since then. Apart from the significant career in medicine, he has devoted himsef to theatre: In 1976 he established the Czech Theatre Around the Corner which was awarded the Gratias agit award in 2008. In 2010 he received the FNG Starr, the highest award of the Canadian Medical Association. Josef Skala died on 22th September 2021.
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!
