Jiří Drlík

"I remember in 1968, when I was, I think, in the eighth grade, when the Russian language teacher, when we came to school on September 1, was very disappointed with what had happened here in the sixty-eighth year. She was a very convinced comrade, but she was very sorry abou it, and I had memories of her, even before she died, when we had classmates reunions, I would remind her of that, and just, she was very disappointed. Of course, my parents also took it hard because they had experienced or remembered in the thirty-third, sorry fifty-sixth year in Hungary, so we always knew at home what was going on in politics because our parents told us about it."

"I only knew it from my mother's story because, as I said, I was very young at the time, I may have been there, but I don't remember. But there was a time when uncle Jiří, her elder brother, went to school, and used to bring a beautiful bundle of hay to his own horses, which were in the stable at Medlov. My mother remembers it in a nice way in that - I repeat myself now - in that Heritage, where it is beautifully described how he first went to give to his horses and then went to school."

"So, if I may, I come from a farmers background, my daddy and my mummy were from small families, my grandfather on my mummy's side had it a little worse, because in Action Kulak - the vast majority of you know what that is - he was threatened with eviction. At that time my mother was about sixteen years old, she had five other siblings, and because after the war her cousins joined the comrades in that village, and when it was decided in that village whether to evict them, Auntie Tonka stood up and said, 'Show me one that Jiřík -' that was my grandfather, my name is also Jiří - 'didn't help.' At that moment they were ashamed and did not evict them."

"I spent the first week of 17 November in Prague, where I was only on a business bus, but we left at 3:30 for our hotel in Mělník, and there were already dozens of police vans there. Of course, it's already been mentioned here in the report or in the film, of course I came home some Sunday evening after a three-day trip and I had no idea what had happened in Prague. Until Tuesday, then, when we met here, eleven people a little bit from here, where the pizzeria is today. So then I, as it was made clear there, I wasn't sure if I was going to go home that evening because there were eleven of us standing and we wanted to go to the fountain, which at that time was very much occupied by a member of the Public Security (VB) and an unnamed member of the PS VB. Since they wouldn't let us go there, we went, you may know the place, to the old cinema, the old Hubert restaurant, the old Hubert pub. We lit the candles at St. Barbara's Church and before we drank our beer, the candles were kicked to pieces."