Martin Věchet

"When I got to Národní třída, I was amazed at how many people were there. It gave me chills. The crowd was chanting, there was a strong energy in the air. But I was drawn somewhere else, behind the curtain, where the majority is not. I didn't really enjoy the demonstrations, it was the crowd that went, when someone shouted, the way they were directed. That's how I got into the ranks of the StB, I don't know how I got through there. Being already “trained” by those StB men, I knew that you couldn't get very far for sure. How many times I saw those stalkers, those incognito masked StBs, I could pretend I was one of them. With such confidence I walked between the cordons of policemen to the epicentre where the secret policemen stood and gave those control instructions. By the antons. I could see the crowd of demonstrators in front of me, as well as those policemen, I was behind their backs, I was in their StB kitchen." - "And what made it interesting?" - "It was disgusting, seeing how it worked. The cops were like out of their minds. With bloodshot eyes, they'd bring in demonstrators, pull them out of the crowd, throw them on the anton or on the ground, beat them up there. Girls, boys, they were insensitively or brutally loaded into the antons. Now, I recognized from Bartolomejska Street some of the policemen who were directing the crackdown. They were like out of their minds, it was as if - I once saw something like that when gypsies were fighting in a pub. You could only see the whites of their eyes. You could see the eyes of the StB policeman, they were like that. It was brutal. The moment they were beating someone up, I couldn't take it anymore and I spoke up. I said, 'Don't beat him, stop it.' At that moment they looked at me. Until then, I went there as I wanted. This one policeman from Bartolomiejska Street pointed at me. I looked around and saw that there were more of us, a group of eight people. That's how we got there. We started to run away."

"Everything in full preparation. Then I heard that there were leaflets all over Prague, we called it the East Bohemian Woodstock. There was a map with the place marked, what bands were going to play there, and how to get there. I still have the invitation to this day, including the return receipt. It was a matter of time before it all kicked off. The promotion was excellent. That was very unusual for the time. At that time, when you did something underground like this, it was done very secretly. We went for it a little bit, in Čuňas's words, 'Well, this perestroika, well, let's try it, to what extent.' We soon became convinced that perestroika was only on paper. We were arrested on the opening day. I couldn't even go near the house. When I wanted to enter my own property, which is absurd today, Major Cícha and the StB chief from Hradec Králové were standing there. 'Mr. Věchet, there's no way you're going there.' 'But I want to go to my own property, to my own house.' 'No way, take him away.' The village and the whole region of Trutnov were surrounded by VB, StB, and probably even the criminal police. People who came in were put back on the trains, the whole station was surrounded. There was also some violence around. Things like that were happening at that time."

"When I met Václav [Havel], we started inviting each other. I invited him occasionally, or rather regularly, to our various illegal meetings, our first attempts at concerts, at a festival, in 1984. When the cops dispersed us again. And Václav in turn invited me to various meetings. For example, in 1984, when Václav was invited to Staré Buky for the first attempt at an independent free festival, we went on a tractor with the equipment - and we didn't even manage to bring it there. We were arrested in front of the tracks and taken away for interrogation. One hundred and fifty people, who had gathered there from all over the country, were left alone in the pub where the small festival was to be held. The chief [Václav Havel] drove in, and parked his new Volkswagen or Mercedes next to the scratched-up police cars that were there. He walked into the place and out of the hundred and fifty people he knew only two or three people. One of them was Honza Princ and Květa Princová. The policemen, seeing this, started to rage like mad, beating the tables with their truncheons: 'So IDs! And all of them! And come on!' What my friends told me afterwards. There was fear. The chief came there, talked to Honza Princ and made a scene that he was there by mistake, that he had gone to buy cigarettes. They didn't arrest him, he snuck out of there, got in his car and drove off. But what they had made up was that, through Honza Princ, he invited all the hundred and fifty participants, whom he had never seen before and who had gathered there from all over the country, to his home in Hrádeček."

"We asked for travel packages, with the idea of seeing the area. It was around Umag, and the proximity to the Italian border was appealing. Trieste and the port were very close. So we went. We took only the basics, we went for three days and three nights, staying at various places. By the second day, we had a feeling that we might be followed. I cut my leg, just before the border. I hesitated to go on. Then we split up. Pavel went on, towards Italy. I was caught the next day, Pavel the day after that." - "Caught by whom?" - "Yugoslav policemen. They interrogated me for a long time, then they loaded me up and took me away. Me with that bandaged, cut leg, sitting there on that fiasco, I thought, this is over soon, your emigrant mission. I had no idea about Pavel." - "What happened to him?" - "Pavel went on. They grabbed him the next day just before the border. I came back, and the next day Pavel arrived. I told him, 'We have no place to stay.' The secret policeman, the guide, was yelling at us about where we thought we were. That three days equals emigration! We looked at him, and we said, what law says that three days equals emigration? We were just here for a walk. He knew everything and he kept saying: 'Three days equals emigration!' We found that the rooms where we were staying were already empty, and cleaned out. Our belongings dismantled."