Jan Doskočil

“The teacher came normally to the class. When he wanted to start teaching, I stood up and sent to the blackboard and asked him to leave, as we joined the strike and we refuse to be taught. That was a bit of a ado in the classroom. There were plenty of those, who got scared. Yet after a heated debate the class agreed to join the strike too.“

“I admit it was not my idea and I even don’t remember whose it was. Back then we thought it would be good to help the Rumanians out. We presumed that Rumunia will need medical aid. I really don’t know whose idea it was, but us, the students, we thought that such a poor country will need medicine. So we began collecting them. Then we added more aid such as food, clothes and other. We started gathering it all at the medical faculty. People were coming without any issues; there was much solidarity amongst them. We handed out leaflets regarding help for Romania and in a short moment much medicine, medical material and food was collected.“

“In Temesvár we saw blood in the streets. When we arrived at the planned location, the rebels accommodated us in a luxury communist hotel and we heard shooting at night. At night a Romanian lieutenant came and brought two seventeen-years-old soldiers for our protection. I know they brought a box with automatic machine and ammunition. Probably in order to protect us just in case. Luckily nothing happened at all.“

“I got caught by surprise, when I arrived back home so in my parent´s flat there was about thirty people; many young ones even from Prague. There were many copy machines. I remember we didn’t sleep all night from Sunday to Monday printing leaflets.“