Mgr. Pavel Bártek

“The plenary meeting of the Communist party´s district committee took place. They got it all wrong as they booked us as an entertainment number. They had no idea they ordered an uninterrupted two-hour performance featuring a symphonic orchestra, a choir and a screening of a war film. They thought we would sing a few songs and off we would go so they could have lunch. However, that wasn´t the case. Five buses came. We built the scene; we screened the war film and for almost two hours we sang Russian war songs . And they just sat in the hall and waited for lunch. The climax came when they had realised they would not live to see the lunch, that the performance could not be interrupted by any means. So they were having lunch as we sang our bloodthirsty war songs. As a starter they had beef broth with dumplings. There were six hundred deputies, it was a party conference. As the main course there was a schnitzel and coffee for dessert. And we just sang along. It was quite an odd experience.”

“In front there were many glass doors and from the inside we glued all the documents we brought. We called people by phone urging them to come and read it, so people have been hanging around J-Club reading the leaflets, they were strolling around. And next to the club there was a police station. So after a while policemen were trying to storm in but we didn´t open. So these were the first steps. In the evening we went to the square where local revolutionaries were gathering since Monday. There was Mirek Urban, Vlastimil Šimík and others. They were there already so we just joined them. I wasn´t making speeches being no orator myself. But we shared information with them. My friend Ivan Junášek was braver than I was, so he invited the people gathered in the square to J-Club. I have to admit I was a bit afraid but he wasn´t so he said: “Let´s go, see you in J-Club next time.” And so we went. Next time there was a bigger gathering taking place in J-Club as in November it was cold outside. Two hundred people attended the event. Till that day people have been gathering in their tens in the square so in J-Club we were quite a crowd already. And somehow we managed to get a videotape with the recording of what happened at Národní třída on November 17th as people had no other means to watch it. And at that place the Civic Forum Committe was founded.”