M.D.Ph.D. Josef P. Skála

"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."