Jana Hlavsová

"I met my father once at Pavlák [Náměstí I. P. Pavlova – trans.]. I went to training far away, to somewhere in Spořilov. There were about five people set on him and then they followed me... [pause] That was so unpleasant...! I didn't even think I could take over any of his stakeouts. I was walking and one guy was always a short way behind me. He followed me almost to the nursery, which I walked into. He stood there the whole training and kept looking in. Sometimes I'd come out and he'd still be there. Then it got more and more frequent, and finally my dad moved out. It was unbearable for him. Mom said she wouldn't go with him, that the time, when she would have stayed there with him, was over... [pause] So he left without her."

"Today I don't know if it was in seventy-two or seventy-three. Anyway, my mom told us we were going to a concert, and I wore a Tesil dress and a blouse. I just dressed like I was going to a concert. Suddenly, we saw this big crowd of máničky and Martin said: 'Come on, come on. You'll be sitting in the front row.' Of course, we had no idea what was going to happen. The máničky spat at us and said: ‘What are you doing here, pioneers?’ Some people also laughed at me because of my clothes. Then a boy came in through the window and sat on my lap. The moment someone else started to check something, he ran away again. But when I heard the first tones, I was completely lost."

"I was told that the Saint Wenceslas Chorale must be sung. We contacted Radim Palouš, the text of the Saint Wenceslas Chorale was distributed and then we met at the agreed place and went through the houses. Václav Havel and Dubček and the whole group went there. I remember that Čepek was there at the time. We also went with Tomas Schilla and the singer from Půlnoc. I don't know if Němcová was already there at that time... [pause] maybe Němcová, Pohanková. I invited them there, and that we would sing it from the balcony. From the other side, an old friend, Marie Kaplanová, also joined in, and she had the same inspiration. We stood on the balcony and it was dreamy. The chorale was sung and you could feel the peace."

“Pavla studied at grammar school, and so did Markéta. It was the grammar school Na Zatlance, and she befriended one English teacher there. His name was Paul Wilson and he would later sing in the band The Plastic People of the Universe. Pavla had a problem with her school-leaving exam. The school principal was great - he called Mom to tell her that the police were planning to arrest Pavla and warned us not to let her sleep at home that night. In disguise she spent the night at a friend’s home and then went to school and passed the final exam. But the police were already waiting for her outside to arrest her. At that time, however, she had already completed the exam.”

“Mejla was deciding whether to take the accusation of his alleged collaboration with the StB to court, but it turned out that there were many old people who had been wronged in the 1950s and who were now dying, and so he didn’t want to get ahead of them. He said that he would wait till the right time. He was very concerned about people liking him, and he therefore felt very depressed by that allegation. But he certainly never felt any hatred toward Petr Cibulka, because he didn’t do it out of spite. It happened because of the games they played with people, which ended in tragedy for many people and their entire families.”

“A couple of days after the arrival of the Soviet army a Trabant drove up to us. Our friend the doctor was sitting inside and my Dad was sitting next to her. ´Pack your stuff, we’re leaving!´ We were astonished, my sister Markéta was happy because she thought we were going to the seaside and she took her swimsuit with her, but the rest of us didn’t take anything. If you imagine a Trabant car with two adults sitting in the front, with Mom and seven children in the backseat. We had red spots on our skin because we had small-pox and Mom made it clear to us that if we were stopped by an armoured vehicle we were not to make faces under any circumstances. I held on to my sister so anxiously that she stuck her tongue out and Mom scolded us for making faces. For three months we stayed with our friends on a hen farm; they had eight or nine children, too, and they were very nice. They had a small house and they allowed us to use one room. Then we went to Vienna where Dad had arranged for a three-month stay during which he was to give lectures. But what Dad was most concerned about was getting some of his books published in Czechoslovakia so that young people could learn something. Therefore we returned, although thanks to our friends, we already had a house, a car and even a driver ready in Switzerland.”

“They came to us after Mejla and the others had been arrested. We knew about it immediately because there were many cars with StB policemen, and I think they were from the Prague-West district. They arrived at that gamekeeper’s house and I think they even arrested some other people there. We learnt from a friend that they were in a detention facility and we were therefore looking for a lawyer. The lawyer we hired had defended my father in the past and later it turned out that it was the StB that had sent him to my father, which was quite regrettable.”

“After the Velvet Revolution they called us and they wanted us to authorize the song Bič boží. That is absurd!”

“Only one time in my life did I go to a pub which was allegedly a meeting place of the underground. I hate that word - I have never considered myself part of the underground. Although this place perhaps was underground: it was a pub called Na Čurandě in Prague 4, and it looked really rough, and the toilets actually led all the way onto the street. There were some tough guys there and one of them offended me so I slapped his face. A terrible fight ensued. Since Mejla was fragile, Magor took over the fight and he nearly carried that guy out of the pub holding him in his teeth. I have never set my foot in that pub again.”

“I was seventeen and my sister Pavla was sixteen when we smuggled microfilms and a bag full of some materials to Poland. My Mom had hidden the microfilms in cookies shaped like little stars. We received the exit permit and we went by train to Poland in order to hand these things over to some student friends. While we were riding on the train, my sister said that she would take a shot of vodka with Andrzej. ´You’re a minor, you can’t drink vodka!´ - ´But I’ll drink it, anyway!´ she said. Since she was so young, she got drunk pretty soon. When we reached the border the border guards came in and they took a look at Pavla and said: ´You’ll go with us, take all your belongings with you.´ She insisted that she was hungry and she wanted to eat those star-shaped cookies, and she was taking her things and the bag with the documents, and I was watching her through the train window. Suddenly I saw that she turned around and she was walking back to the train. ´Pavla, how did you manage to make him let you go?´”