Karel Koutský

“As far as Charter 77 is concerned, I had a foundation from my granddad. In 1977, when Václav Havel presented the Charter to the general public, professor Patočka used to come to our home. He was a good friend of my granddad and he brought the Charter in early 1977. My granddad was already blind, but he signed it. And then events unfolded which had an impact on me. I remember when I was twelve a doorbell rang and the Secret Police arrived. I had no idea what the Charter was, I was twelve. They came for my granddad, they wanted to arrest him over the Charter and other things. He was a sociologist and a psychologist, he had lectures at the university and at home. These were meetings of people who were active in their resistance against the regime. And I took this with me to my own home.”

“The interrogations were then a daily routine. They somehow wanted to force me to collaborate with them, which I vehemently refused. They used to wait for me at certain places and wanted to make life difficult for me. Not that they tortured me physically, but it was frustrating psychologically. I felt unrooted. Whenever I went, I felt danger. I walked down the Wenceslas Square, they took my backpack, took out my books and threatened me that I was not supposed to be there, that they never wanted to see me in this place. This one could stand, to a certain extent. But then they threatened us that they would take our son, would put him in an orphanage and that we must get reconciled with this, and that they would issue passports to us and send us to Australia. This was rather tough psychologically. I didn’t want to emigrate. I had my family here. My granddad was no longer alive, but I had my parents here and I had no intention to move out. Why should I go to Australia?”