Vladimír Emmer

“Mirek and Věra were somehow got scolded because we should be wearing Pioneer uniforms and we should not be dressed as Scouts anymore. We, as children, were oblivious to it. For me it was rather stressful. Mirek told us that we will have to at least wear the scarfs during the return from the trip. So we did some night game when boys walked the roads, there used to be a blue log cabin, we used to called it this. It was a ruined log cabin in the woods, Pod Hradiskem. There was a ghost ready who haunted the boys in the night and gave him those Pioneer scarfs. But of course, it turned out to be a shame, which got Mirek in trouble. None of us accepted it, we did not take those scarfs and later boys even clean their shoes with them at the train station in Kostelec.”

“We were terribly disappointed by the August 1968. I remember it as today, I had a classmate Jarda Beránek, later at the grammar school he was in the next class but we were still friends because we knew each other from the primary school. And I remember we heard planes flying and he came to us, it was about nine in the morning, he cried and told us that the Russians are occupying us. We bore it very hard at the time. We went to the centre and the whole street – today Benešova Street – was defaced with lime. It was written everywhere: there are no Russian eggs and there won't be; Go home, Ivan and all those slogans. People signed petitions to make them go home. Them we had an experience because Jirka Rýdl who lives on the Fibichova Street, there was a gate from the top of Telečská Street, from Pod Příkopem Street. At that time, I, Jirka and one other friend Honza were pasting a little poster. Honza drew a poster with a hand and on each of the fingers there was one state which came to occupy us and, in the hand, there was the Republic. From the bottom of the street, a Russian GAZ arrived and the soldier came at us with machine gun, they snapped at us and threatened us. They took a jotter and wrote down our names. There was a lady next to us, she had run out with a rag and said we are just stupid boys and that we should tear it down. Back then, the Russki was content with us dictating names to him. Honza was quick-witted then and so he said his name was Bilak, I was Štrougal and I do not remember who was Jirka, and the address we gave him was the cemetery on Žižkova Street. He slammed the notebook shut with great satisfaction, saying that he would deal with us again.”