M.D.Ph.D. Josef P. Skála

"Here I´d like to change the subject a bit and refer to my medical experience. You know, I had a feeling that all the 50s and 60s until the Prague Spring, our country suffered a diagnosis that could be called encephalitis lethargica. It means you are alive but as if not living. This illness was first described in America in the 1920s. Simply said, people lived for decades as if they didn´t perceive their whereabouts. They were in a kind of suspended state of unconsciousness when neurologists discovered a substance called Eldopa. They used it with the patients suffering from lethargy. The patients woke up suddenly to life and had no idea at all of the past 40 years. They woke up and resumed living. And I had a feeling as if the whole Czech nation was given the Eldopa in spring 68. So, we woke up. The days right after the occupation were unforgettable. The vacant space at the Dětský dům (the Children´s House) where people met, discussed the situation, where we talked about anything and made up plans, was wonderful. Something happened to me then. After about three days we were delivering leaflets with the number plates of cars confiscated in Prague by the Russian Army and used as civilian cars to pick up people. We happened to obtain these numbers, we duplicated them and in thousands of copies were bringing them from the printer ´s office across the bridge to Revoluční Street. It was an old two-seat Aero car with hundreds of leaflets between us. We were stopped by the Russians. They were rather Asians than Russians and I guess they didn´t even speak Russian. We tried to communicate with them but it was impossible. They dragged us out of the car and positioned us against the wall. And ironically, next to the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In front of us there was a soldier with a sub-machine gun aimed at us, with his finger on the trigger, impossible to communicate with. We were standing there for some seven hours. Without a chance to go to the toilet, no idea what would happen to us. The soldiers with guns alternated every two hours. After about six hours, an officer appeared and said in Russian that we should leave quickly and the car had been confiscated. So, we left the place. It was na incredible experience of total helplessness. By accident, this was the time when Dubček and Smrkovský returned from Moscow. In the moment when they started to say: “Disperse, Obey, There would be enormous and unforseeable consequences“, the people at the vacant space at the Dětský dům started to argue. Some were saying: “Let´s disperse“ some were saying : “No, they were being manipulated, we shouldn´t obey them.“ To my horror I suddenly realised that the unity that had been there for the first five days, was no more. Secondly, I still felt the utter powerlessness of the fresh experience when standing in front of a man with a gun and not being able to communicate. And thirdly, I learned that the Union of Young Scientists would be considered a subversive organisation. At that moment I realised that I didn´t want to follow in the footsteps of my father and share the fate of our family and that I had to leave. So, at the end of August I illegally crossed the border at Železná Ruda. The Russians made a mistake then. They had old maps that´s why they didn´t occupy the town so I finally ended up in Vienna."

"Well, one day after January events my father didn´t come home from work in the shop. We had no idea why and his employees said that a car with men in leather coats had arrived and taken him away. About a year, maybe more, we didn´t have any news about him. If he is alive or dead. It took about two years when he had probably been in custody that he was brought to court in Karlovo náměstí square. We, his children and our mother, were allowed to be present. I remember that an accusation of sorts was brought out, then there were speeches and finally the judge dressed in a gown absolved our father saying there was no proof against him. But at that moment another man behind the table stood up. He was a lay judge. He didn´t agree with the verdict and we at that moment of utter happiness that our father was freed, were thrown into a terrible disappointment that he would once again end up in prison. And yes, he was in prison for two or three or maybe even four years. And because he was never sentenced and there was never any accusation brought up against him, it was more than clear that the point was that when a boss of a shop was in prison or in custody, a sequestration over the property was declared and a confiscation followed. And this was precisely what happened in a year or two. We lost absolutely everything. My mother stayed alone with her mother and my sister and me earning money as a cleaning woman. And my father when he was finally released from prison, in order to get to know the working class – as they said then – was sent to work in the Poldovka steel works at Kladno for many years and later worked as a driver´s mate and driver of removal vans. The only thing I remember from these days was that I thought it very strange what happened rather often. When granny served dinner, it was only for my sister and me and my granny and mother said they had already eaten. Of course, I had no idea then what it meant."