Jan Pochman

* 1970

  • "And my friend and I made a banner and we were deciding hard what to write on the banner. And from previous experience, when the police immediately tore down all the banners, we said, 'So what do we write there?' Something seemed too sharp, too radical, other slogans came too soft, and in the end we decided not to write anything there and see if they would tear down the banner, even if there would be no inscription. It was a misconception, because there were a lot of banners, nobody tore anything up. So we could easily write what we wanted there, but that's how it turned out."

  • "Yeah, I went to the demonstrations quite often. I attended one that actually had a bit of an overlap to this day, because it was a demonstration against the Blanka tunnel, but it was supposed to lead a little different way than it does now. He was supposed to lead through Stromovka. And it was supposed to lead partly on the surface and then to go underground.The tracing just looked a little different. And of course, people did not interfere with the decision-making processes at all, it was simply decided by the Communist Party or not by the Communist Party, but the planners somehow decided that it would be like this, and the public was not involved in the process at all, and there was one such recessionist organization called the Czech Children, and it held such a demonstration in Stromovka against the tunnel leading through Stromovka as a pity. And because there were few of us, there were about fifty people, it was not difficult for the police forces, which knew that this demonstration would take place, to somehow get rid of this group and actually arrest them all. Which happened to me, and I was arrested and interrogated. What I did there, why I was there. So I lied that I was there to walk in the park and I didn't want to have any problems, so I lied. Of course, they knew I was lying. So for the next interrogation, which they called me about fourteen days later, they wrote to me to take my passport with me. So I took it with me a little naively and they confiscated it from me and said that before the whole event was investigated thoroughly, they confiscated my passport so that I could not leave the republic. And since then, I actually had no passport."

  • "So how did you know in Palach's week when and where to go?" "Well, I think we were passing on such a whisper. I think someone found out on the radio, in Free Europe or in the Voice of America, and then people said it to each other. So it was just known."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Praha, 11.11.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 59:03
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Every generation has the right to revolt

Jan Pochman (en)
Jan Pochman (en)
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Jan Pochman was born on October 14, 1970 in Prague. Although his family was not politically involved, he began taking part in anti-regime demonstrations while in high school. He took part in anti-regime demonstrations later known as Palach‘s Week in January 1989 in Prague. In the summer of 1989, together with other young people, he protested against cutting down the trees in Prague‘s Stromovka. He was detained there, then taken for interrogation, where his passport was confiscated. He also took part in the demonstration on November 17, 1989 on Národní třída and then in subsequent rallies, which led to the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.