Lubomír Sapoušek

"And now we're on Wenceslas Square, and suddenly a short, fat, glasses-wearing man turns around [and says], 'What did you say?' And I knew this man - the State Security officer who was running the place - was in front of me. I told him, 'I'm telling my son here what you're doing to the people!' Because they were really forcing their noses to the ground. When they drag you with your arms twisted up, that your head is up against the road, that's very cruel, and that's how I reacted. And he yelled, 'Arrest him!' And now the discussion started. Some Asians were standing with him, a couple. And I said, 'You would have to arrest my son too.' And he said, 'Son? That's your son? That's not your son.' I say, 'He's my son.' He says, 'Your ID!' And the ID card, of course, read that I had a son and a daughter. And he says to my son, 'What's your name?' And Tomáš says, 'I won't tell!' I said: 'Don't be a hero now, or you'll stay here!' So he confessed that he was my son. But the State Security guy, the little fat man, closed my ID and said: 'He never had a son. Take him away!'"

"An officer from the department came in and said, 'Well, here we have this evil. Charter 77. We should sign that we disagree.' I'm talking about the soldiers, of which there are a hundred in the political education room, and the rest are on duty. One hundred of us should have signed the Anti-Charter. And now what I never knew could happen has happened. One [of the soldiers] stood up and said: 'What is that Charter?' 'It's something harmful. We can't even talk about it.' 'And why can't we talk about it?' 'You have to trust the party and the government,' he said. 'And why don't they trust us?' And I watched, and I got goosebumps. Because I, as a young soldier, didn't expect anyone to speak out against that officer, especially someone from the unit. It always made everybody tremble when a man like that came in. And then [he was] joined by a couple of these older soldiers [who] bullied me, of course. But I suddenly knew that they had some strength in them because they resisted. No one from that unit of ours signed the Anticharter [in the end], which is nonsense because, at that time, they all had to prove their affiliation to the party and the government, [by which] I mean the officers. So I guess they did it for us. Because I can't get my head around the idea that they would just let it go."

"My father and I were always in conflict. He held opinions with which I disagreed, and I became such a rebel who didn't like anything and wasn't grateful for anything. And I was mischief. When I was in my first year of apprenticeship, I found out that I was in the ROH [Revolutionary Trade Union Movement]. Immediately I ran to the head of the ROH with another friend to get us out because such a disgrace to be registered in the ROH [I couldn't survive]. Everything about the labor movement was disgusting to us. I don't know why, but we lived through the occupation in 1968 and then the coups when my father told me I wasn't allowed to talk like that and didn't explain why. In '68, everybody wanted to shoot Russians, even my father. I heard it. A year later, when I was drawing caricatures of Soviet leaders, he dragged me away, saying that I couldn't do that, that we would suffer terribly as a family. And this was perhaps the turning point, that I became an opponent of my father and then of all those with the same views."