Tomáš Šponar

“You know what the propaganda said about the West and the United States. There was a large company in Ústí nad Orlicí, it was a stated-owned company at that time, and it produced textile machinery. Those machines were not produced in any other place in the world and therefore people from the West were purchasing them as well, and the technicians who were setting up these machines were traveling there and living there. When I was in the fifth grade, a classmate returned to our class who had been living with her parents in the United States for a year or two. The teacher introduced her to us and we stared at her as if she had come back from Mars, because we had that image of America as imperialism and poverty. The teacher invited her mom and for two hours, or maybe even longer, she was talking to us about what it was like in America, how children played there, where they went shopping, what good things they had there to eat. She spoke enthusiastically and nicely about everyday life and thanks to her we were able to see that it was good in America and that it was not as bad as we were told in television and newspapers. The teacher did not feel that she ought to balance it in any way, and she invited her and let her talk freely about how things were good in America. The teacher in her and the honest person in her have prevailed.”

“The year 1968 plays a crucial role in my life. The occupation was something which was really making me angry. I will be honest: we did not have a completely clear idea how democracy should or should not work, or what was or was not an alternative to the communist regime - we were only utterly enraged and I knew that it was not good and that it had to stop. My idea was that the comrades should relent a lot. At that time I was something of a 68’er: I would have been content with only reforming the system, it would be enough for me if I were allowed to go on a trip to Vienna, and have more newspapers and better music, etc. I was twenty years old, without a political background, but this military occupation was a traumatizing thing which in my opinion should stop immediately. When in 1988 there was the 20th anniversary of the occupation and it was just shortly before my birthday, I told my parents that I was going to visit a friend and that they should not worry about me, and on August 21st I went from the train station straight to Wenceslas Square. Quite a large protest rally formed there; communists were totally taken aback by that. It was evolving, at first there were only few of us under the St. Wenceslas statue. I met several guys whom I already knew, like young Dobrovský, and I knew, or rather suspected, that they were people with connections to the dissident community. My presence there was purely spontaneous and I thought that if we were to protest against something, then that was it. People were coming from the side streets, they came to have a look and they took courage and suddenly a third of the Wenceslas Square was full. Then we walked down somewhere to the Old Town Square, then to the present-day Palach Square. We were not able to pass in front of the Faculty of Arts, because they wanted to go to the Castle, and then we went to Charles Bridge, and there was a policeman standing there and people started shouting at him: ‘Gestapo! Gestapo!’ In the context of what we know today it was absolutely fitting, but at that time I thought that it was awfully controversial, because at that time I didn’t know anything about it.”