Štěpán Machart

* 1950

  • “I was frightened! I said to myself – Oh, my god! I also said it to the warden with whom I became friends: 'Dude if we get caught…' He [captain Zasran]disguised the V3S, and he took down the military signs. Otherwise, it was not unusual to see V3S in Poland, it was a famous off-road vehicle. The GAZ was also commonly used. We did not behave… he [captain Zasran] turned his uniform inside out. And later he talked to a Polish police officer, we drove by an accident. We even helped pull the car out of the field. Well, I was, I was scared, I was sweating. And Zasran told me: 'Shout up, do not talk, and sit here!' Well and that is how we drove through a part of Poland and returned to Slovak territory to bypass the closure of this area."

  • “An unlucky political training of the ranks took place there when they played us an edited film from 1967. As students, we looked for weekend jobs. My parents did not have much money, so I had to e.g., unload wagons during my studies so that I made some money. There was something like youth´s construction and 28. října street was under reconstruction between Můstek in Wenceslas Square and Národní třída. We pulled out pavement there and it was replaced by asphalt. And we as part-time workers threw the stones, the cobblestones on the lorries. And it was recorded either by Krátký film Praha (Short film Prague) or by Vojenský film (Military film), I do not know anymore. And imagine that they showed us this film in which I am in a lot during military service in Prešov, eastern Slovakia calling it: 'Prague hooligans are building a barricade against Soviet soldiers who came to help us.' And I shouted: 'No, no, no, please, play it again' and I showed them it was me on the screen. And that it had taken place a year before and was just a reconstruction of the street. They did not take it very well. They dismissed the political training and made us go to the barracks. And I kept trying to explain it. I said: 'Guys, it happened differently, I will prove it somehow, the film must exist somewhere in an archive!' Unfortunately, I got into a dispute with those Slovaks who were already candidates of the party at that time, which I did not know at the time. And they said: 'You are the Prague hooligan; you participated in the counter-revolution! And I told them: 'Dude, there was no counter-revolution, you guys are complete idiots! You do not know anything, what do you know about what was happening in Prague?' And that is how it started. They turned me in."

  • “It was in August or September 1968 when we got into (the tanks) and tried to tell the soldiers they were here by mistake. We found out it was not possible very soon. And later groups of youths were organized. The students from Charles University organized them. I still attended Secondary School at that time, but I was in the group until the end of 1968 before I left school. In the spring of 1969, we had addresses of the Russian officers who settled down here. It was a year after the occupation. And we were still courageously trying to convince them it had been a mistake; nothing was going on here and no counter-revolution had taken place. We were trying. I was active in it because I could speak Russian. However, I should not have done it. Because they caught us, they had kept an eye on us for a while, then arrested and imprisoned us. In Prague, the Headquarters of the Occupation Troops was in Halštatská square, at the Hotel U Haštala. They locked us somewhere in the cellar and acted out a nasty play with us – they told us they would execute us. They then drove us into the yard and fired blanks at us. Well, what should I say, we shitted ourselves However, it was where I stopped being active in any political activities because I thought: 'Enough, your heroism ends here. Do something, find employment, and hide or just behave like a normal person.' That is why I went to work for the Military Constructions.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    České Budějovice, 10.06.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:12:59
  • 2

    České Budějovice, 15.06.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:26:06
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I do not regret anything; I would do it again

Štěpán Machart, mandatory military service, enlistment, Prešov 1969
Štěpán Machart, mandatory military service, enlistment, Prešov 1969
zdroj: witness´s archive

Štěpán Machart was born on 26 January 1950 in Jablonec nad Nisou. He started to study at the Secondary School of Land Surveying in Prague in 1965. As a student, he participated in activities concerning so called Prague Spring in 1968. After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact Troops in former Czechoslovakia, he and his classmates got into occupation tanks and tried to explain to the soldiers that they were there by mistake. At the beginning of 1969, he and an organized group of students tried to convince Soviet officers of the fact that no counter-revolution had taken place here. Subsequently, the group was arrested and imprisoned at the Hotel U Haštala. They then faked their execution at the yard. He joined the military service in Prešov in 1969 and he was sentenced to serve six months in prison for public defamation of the leaders of the nation and race in the military correctional facility in Sabinov in the spring of 1970. He served part of his sentence in an isolated workplace in a stone pit in the military area in Valaškovice. After his military service, he worked as a land surveyor for various companies. He became a pilot and became an entrepreneur after 1989. He lived in České Budějovice in 2021.