Václava Austová

"The second challenge was to talk to them. So I went to talk to them. I pushed the carriage, the baby, to my husband and went to the tank. When you were on a walk with your teacher in Prague Castle, where it is the narrowest, in the narrowest place before you reach Hradčanské náměstí, there was a tank. So I went to that tank, because there were soldiers sitting on it, watching, so I started speaking Russian to them. I learned Russian for about ten years, so I spoke to them in Russian and told them that nothing was happening here, that there was no counter-revolution here, that we want freedom. Well, and now the barrel started pointing at me like that, so I was like, 'Damn it, shoot, don't shoot.' And I say, 'Do you even know where you are?' And they were telling me that they were in Paris, that they have information that they are in Paris and that you are guarding de Gaulle's residence. I say: 'But that's not true at all.' Well, when another one with a machine gun came out of the tank, I gave up."

"Mom had a little eight-month-old little Vendulka at home, and dad brought home a bunch of overgrown dirty Russian-speaking soldiers. My mother turned green with fear, she held me in her arms, her hand was ready so that if they came after me, she would squeeze my mouth, and only the one really rushed to me, and my father left my mother to let him go, because he was simply a good person. And he took me in his arms and cried and cried that when he was going to war, he also had a little girl like that at home. Well, so they got a treat, they drank, they washed, and daddy led them away because they wanted to go into American captivity, because they knew that if they got into Russian, they would get immediately executed."