Jan Dvořák

"We went to Prague to see demonstrations. Of course, it was so exciting for us then - it was not yet completely known how it would end. And then came a disappointment. We returned from the demonstration, returned to school, and there the boys from the secret security, then the state police came for us. And all of us who were there, or all, who confessed to it, because some did not confess or say, did not show it (we were picked up). We reported it straight to everyone. I remember going to my classroom professor and saying, 'But we, Professor, would like to go there.' She says, 'Guys, don't be silly, do not let something happen to you. ‘She wasn't even worried that something was going on there, but that we might be harmed. But she said, well, you want to go, you want to go, I'll count on it, you will be apologized. That seemed to me as fair dealing from that lady. And then there were others who went there as if illegally. But for all of us who showed it openly, they came for us. Three cars came for us, they loaded us in; I must say that I was not completely well, nor the others. We were interrogated all day, from the morning, actually arrived sometime around half past eight and released us at about four. Because the situation was really different in the center to the one at the periphery."

"I remember that behind the train line, behind the station, was a border guard booth. There were always two members with sharply charged weapons, with submachine guns, and everyone who passed by was stopped. Well, of course we made fun of it. We cycled there almost every other day. Some already knew us, but when new ones came, they stopped us and drove us to interrogation again. Today, I have to say that sitting with the boys across the street and playing with a sharply loaded submachine gun, well, I probably wouldn't be able to stand it today. It seemed so funny to me then. As I say, I would probably beat my children today if they did something like that. But the time was the same everywhere, all the border areas were affected in this way, and great care was taken to ensure that no one, God forbid, approached the border closer than around five or ten kilometers, that was simply out of the question. In fact, we were almost in the border zone, or just behind Znojmo was the border zone and you couldn't go any further."