Ing. Pavel Tomek , CSc.

“So my father was quite cautious and he was afraid after all. So when there was this press conference, with the journalists, where the reestablishment of the Social Democratic Party was to be addressed, he sent me there and told me to just hit there, stating that he would be sitting on the opposite side watching and if it would look good he would also come. So we came there and found out there were just State Security men. As some of us still knew who he was, so they told us that the Ministry of Interior just occupied the place. So after that it was announced that the press conference was postponed indefinitely and we just left. And I remember that on May Day me and my mother made this banner stating: REESTABLISH THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY. And we carried the banner. And then we saw that it was bad. But the May Day of 1968 was fine. There was this gathering in Na Příkopech street, there was Dubček and so. But this slogan of ours was too much for them. So we threw it in the Vltava River from Šverma's bridge.” - “No one joined you?” - “No one.”

“I think that in the end we convinced him so in May he started reestablishing the Social Democratic Party. They wrote this letter regarding the reestablishment of the Social Democracy and we were visiting all kinds of people and so did my father. Actors, Voska and Kemr, for example – they were quite enthusiastic. And they were also quite brave men – both Voska and Kemr. But after that they got all the way up to Smrkovský he just threw them out, stating that it was impossible that there would be several political parties. So they had this platform of theirs. But even in the most liberal perspective they couldn't see another possibility than the one party system, with just the Communist party and nothing else. I remember my father organising meetings in our flat. Mr Bechyně used to come, he was the son of a minister, and Přemysl Janýr, who were reestablishing the Social Democratic Party, and they were preparing all those materials and they organise this press conference at Žofín in May 1968.”

“Back then there was this initiative, that people should walk to their jobs and they should be wearing tricolour. And in the afternoon they should walk back home again. So me and my colleagues we went from work and in the Republic Square (Náměstí republiky) there were militiamen who started beating people quite badly and I would say that they even shot someone there. And we started running down the Dlouhá Street and the militiamen were chasing us, they were just furious. So we thought that this was even worse then 1968 as now Czech people were beating us. And policemen were also quite strict so we thought that probably it would be quite bad from then on.”

“For example, my father said that I forced him to use word 'zvrat'. And he didn't understand why he should say 'zvrat', as it was grammatically incorrect. What 'zvrat'. So the investigators who were practicing that with him kept correcting him that he didn't say 'zvrat' again. And indeed, even in the charge against him there is that he was preparing a 'zvrat'. And after that they would add many things themselves. As during that rehabilitation Dr Kovařovic stated that there were many things my father didn't say. As he was one of the few people who said that they didn't feel guilty and that there was no ground for him to feel guilty of treason. But the document states that they all pleaded guilty to treason and they all acknowledged their guilt. So they just created those statements as they wanted to...”

“All of a sudden we were left without resources as my father had no savings and he just wasn't saving money, All of a sudden she had maybe sixty Crowns in our household. So relatives would support us. As that was a common thing, that wives of political prisoners were having quite a hard time. Many of them wouldn't be able to endure such a thing and they would ask for a divorce. In a way their situation was much worse than that of the prisoners. Most of them weren't prepared for something like that, they had no funds to support their families. They couldn't get a job. Our mother would knit those small caps, but there was someone else who was responsible, there was this go-between. After three years, maybe in 1957, she got a job as a road sweeper at the Municipal Services in Prague after someone would put in a good word for her. So she would sweep streets in Dejvice, in Střešovice, in many different places. I knew that well as I used to come to help her. They would give her this wooden cart with those big wheels, which was so heavy that she wouldn't be able to push it, so I used to help her.”