Jiří Felix

During normalization, I have been a commissioner for entrance interviews on the department of Romance studies many times. It was a total farce, because the poor applicants were thinking that it was the job of the commission to decide about them being accepted. This was an absolute error, but we couldn’t tell them. The only thing we could say was whether we recommend them or not, but the decision itself was up to the Communist Party Headquarters for Prague 1 on the Old town square. I remember sad stories; there was a boy, whose name I forgot, from a film-maker family – smart, polite, he knew all he had to. We recommended him, but he was refused, because his father was expelled from the party.

And then the Heydrich assassination happened. I remember clearly how we went to school and all the trams stopped in front of the the Invalidovna house; we couldn’t go any further as the assassination was committed. We were able to get Vysočany, where we lived, only after several days. I recall how I went to see my mother in the school teachers' room and everybody wanted Heydrich to die. Which eventually happened, but what followed was terrible. Accidentally, I was just on Malostranské Square when the city radio announced the destruction of the village of Lidice.

At university, we had a girl who left after two years. She was really good-looking, smart, her father being a senior doctor in Benešov. But contrary to her father, she was a terrible communist. But she was the kind of a saloon communist, a very dangerous one; she always asked: „how do you mean it, comrade?“ Later on, we learned that when her father spoke against the regime at home, she threatened him: "Don't talk like that, papa, or I will have to denounce you!"

I remember that on high school, we had an event shortly before the graduation in an assembly hall. It was already after the communist coup. And there, someone was babbling and the other students were laughing. But the young communists there replied: „You may laugh now, but we will give you recommendations on universities!“ And they were as unashamed as possible; it was true, after all.