Jana Štroblová

"There were May festivities in 1956. It was surprising and, in a way, exuberant and high-spirited. I remember Ivan Klíma dressed as a kulak or Jiří Čutka. It was rather remarkable, he was an assistant-professor at the Department of Marx-Leninism and was dressed as a millionaire. They were driven on a kind of allegorical vehicle which represented the parasites and negative characters in literature. I walked by with a barred box. At the last moment I was given the placard, it was libri prohibiti, and I was followed by the Jesuit censor Koniáš. The chairman of the party organization rushed to my placard, wrenching it from my hand. I still vividly remember his sweat and desperation as he was fighting it. This drew the attention of reporters and a picture of me with the box was published in Le Monde in Paris. And I was harassed by the police at university.

"I was put under pressure personally. They even threatened me that I would not reach my home and my son was ill in bed. They knew it, since they came to us twice, when I refused to arrive for interrogation. They arrived with a tape recorder and said that if I didn't go, they would arrest me. Otakar, my husband, was at a conference in Bratislava and I was alone with my son. He was terribly afraid of those men even though they treated him kindly. Later he would wake at night, terrified. And they threatened me: ,Not only that your child will never be able to study, but you may not reach him when he is ill again. You may get lost forever walking through Prague.' This is how they spoke to me."