Mgr. Libuše Černá

“After the 1968 holiday we all went hop picking. It was already before the first year at the university. Soviet troops were stationed in the area and we were naturally confronted with them during our jobs. Once it happened that the troops suddenly arrived and arrested all of us. They said we had cut some wires and that we were saboteurs. The situation became very dangerous for us. Eventually, we were saved by our Russian teacher who spoke to them and persuaded them to release us.”

“Two girls from a higher grade suddenly disappeared. There was a terrible panic what had happened to them. They did not arrive until evening and they arrived in a Russian Jeep with soldiers. This was the other side, those who were friendly with the Russian troops. The night they returned, their fellow students cut their hair. They had to leave and there was a scandal about it, as these were, naturally, girls from prominent communist families.”

“I was at home when the phone rang in the middle of the night. There was the boyfriend of my sister on the line, saying, ‘We are occupied’. I didn’t understand it at all. And then I heard the thunder of the planes. For years later I couldn’t bear the sound of planes. Of course it was a huge shock. And then the situation after August 21 when we awoke and tanks were everywhere in the streets. There were tanks even in front of the memorial tank at Újezd. All main points in the city were occupied. And we lived it. With everything that was a part of it.”

“We spent the whole day in Bartolomějská street. It was like from Franz Kafka. We were sitting at a station, no one took note of us the whole day. Then we were interrogated, each of us separately, and they asked us absurd questions. The whole Kafkasque day ended by someone sending us to a tobacconist’s to buy a CZK 300 fee stamp and that was it.”