Jiří Buřič

"I guess I would divide it into two phases. First there were those in the Civic Forum who were really brave in my opinion. Those people were convinced and really wanted a change. Some wanted to hang the communists, that's a fact, but they were just clear. But in the next phase the former communists or still communists started to appear and they were joining the Civic Forum, so to think that the Civic Forum was wide-ranging but party-free is nonsense because there were also communists. I myself did not like that and I also expressed it. I said it even in the companies I went to, whether it was ČSAD or Jednota ... The Civic Forum was also joined by the people, who were right in the leadership. For me it was funny and I smiled when we were at AŽD for Directorate-General also sought to create a Civic Forum and the first to apply was an engineer who at that time was one of the deputies and later it turned out that he was the Public Security associate and I don't know what else..."

“Twice I had a visit to the police or the Public Security, then I realized that it was State Security. We first came there with my mom, they asked us something. The funny thing was that they asked me: 'What about brother, how is he?' I said, 'Okay.' He knew I wasn't going to talk to him very much, so they asked again: ´And what, is he in Vancouver?' We said he was not in Vancouver, but in Michigan. In a year or two I got a summons again and asked if my brother was still in Vancouver and I said yes and he was fine. I was met by Pepa Husa – he claimed that he was in this house and told me that if I wanted to see Ludvík, I should tell him that he would help me. In the time perspective and distance I got to say it was a pure provocation. If I had said that I would have liked to go to visit my brother, so they would have followed me to stop. Much would have followed that I perceived after the end of that damned regime.”

"Of course there was tension and militancy in humans. That goes without saying. They were angry and threw tomatoes and stones at the Russians. That was how they showed up, at least in Kolín on the bridge. But I was still quite happy. Then I was pretty shaken and changed, when they shot Mirek. Mirek Beránek, he was a very good boy, who I even sat with at school and our parents knew each other. Mirek was always so nice, he wasn't angry, unlike me and it seemed strange to me why they shot him in Prague allegedly throwing stones at a Russian soldier who was supposed to turn around and shoot him. It's hard, because finding a record from back then was difficult. They allegedly found the soldier and even punished him, but the punishment was more of a ridiculous matter."

"I also have to say with some modesty that in my head an idea was born to publicly thank people in some way and also to compensate them, or simply to draw attention to people who were victims of communism. At that time a proper terminology was sought; at that time, we did not say ´the third resistance´ proudly. Not everyone was an open anti-communist, so we eventually looked for support in the newly formed republican authorities and hinted, for example, that rehabilitation was slow, people I was convinced were heroes, they received residual punishment because they were condemned for their resistance to communism, some of them opposed with the weapon in their hands. Of course, I mean people who were connected with the Mašín brothers like Švéda or Novák, but mainly Švéda who had some 15, 17 years of residual punishment, despite being rehabilitated. I would like to point out the fact that we have succeeded. I talk in plural, because we were two - Pavel Pobříslo and I. I was the mayor at that time, he was the secretary of the office. We formulated these resolutions on the recognition of the anti-communist resistance, and there was also a symbolic settlement in crowns to those who were victims in Kolín and in the district of Kolín."

"He lost it in a way because he was made an offer he could not refuse. Somehow he had to take care of his family. He lost it because of nationalization and association. He was offered to join the cooperative. His name was Znak Klánovice. That was trackable; in the drawer there was evidence that he had bought machines from Bata - a cutter or a press, and put them in a cooperative, and then my grandfather started to go to Klánovice, and my mom was a so-called house worker and grandad was working there too, which was comical; with all his experience he vulcanized rubber. A few years passed and he was a master."