"The daughter of a good friend of mine lost her life. It was in Debř nad Jizerou, on the bridge, now called Masaryk Bridge, I don't know what it used to be called. There was some armoured personnel carrier and it drove onto the pavement and swept away the kid's mother, in short, killed her. That was the biggest incident or death that I know of." - "That was a young mum, I heard. That maybe she was even pregnant." - "Yes, it's possible she was." - "Did you know her personally?" - "Her dad. He told me what it happened there." - "I heard, that she went with her husband, who was injured." - "They were swept away before the river, they fell into the hillside there. She didn't survive."
"I went to work like I always did and around 10 o'clock their military convoys started arriving. First motorcycles and then heavy equipment, not tanks, but trucks and soldiers that reminded me a lot that they were from the East, more like Mongolians. We were sick of it." - "Did you close up shop and go out?" - "We didn't close the shop, but of course I was outside." - "Where were you or where did you go to see it?" - "We were standing on the sidewalk where it was going by, and there were some that were trying to throw things at them, but I thought it was dangerous because they had their guns pointed right at people. So, I was thinking, somebody's going to go nuts, the eastern ones in particular, and it’s going to cost us our lives. Fortunately, nothing happened that day."
Jan Erychleb was born on 15 March 1946 in Mladá Boleslav. Both his parents worked as textile merchants. He graduated from high school with a specialization in television technology in Kutná Hora. Then he went to the compulsory military service, and after returning from the compulsory military service in 1967 he worked in the Mladá Boleslav shopping centre Cíl, where he sold electrical equipment. On 21 August 1968 he experienced the arrival of the occupation troops in Mladá Boleslav. He devoted himself to playing the accordion and regularly went to national competitions with the local orchestra. In November 1989, he participated in demonstrations in Mladá Boleslav during the Velvet Revolution. After the fall of communism, he continued his parents’ tradition and started his own business, selling electronics as a freelance trader. In 2023 he lived in Mladá Boleslav. He died in October of the same year.
