Karel Zub

„On that day, I had to meet my cousin at the main square, the plan to go to her workplace where she worked as a lab technician, that she would draw my blood and check it because at that time, I had some heart problems. My eyesight had worsened, too. I was waiting for her at the square, the trams stopped going, those which went across the Saský bridge up towards the Lochotín neighbourhood. Out of sudden, I heard somewhat stronger noise, what was happening? And there was a crowd going down the Prešovská street, towards the square. I did not know what was going on. So, they got in front of the city hall. I was a curious lad so I went to have a look, I was sixteen. And I saw that there were things being flung out of the windows, paintings and various other things which they were throwing down on the pavement and then it got set on fire. And it was sort of pretty busy, there had to be quite some chaos at the town hall. And the cops came in a car. I think it was a Škoda, not sure, convertible, without a roof. And the crowd turned the car on the side so that the cops couldn’t go away. And how it continued then… The cops probably walked away because they could get some more than they had expected. I don’t know how long did that take. I was interested so I was watching. I stood at the church wall. I had quite a good idea about the events and when it got calmed down and people started gossiping that there should be the Ministry of Interior army coming from Prague, the so-called Inner Guard, that indeed had some effect, people started to worry when they saw they wouldn’t reach any goals. And the police was not letting anyone to the square any more. They blocked the streets around and they did not let anyone pass any further, so I thought to myself: ‘What now, it probably ended already.’ The cousin did not come at all, I knew where she worked so I thought, I could as well walk across the Saský bridge to Lochotín to the medical school where she could get the blood work done.”