Ivana Follová

"My mother worked as a social worker in a hospital and then she stayed at home with me because she took care not only of me, but also of my grandmother. I don't remember much; it was my father's mother who was quite sick. Just to illustrate the situation, she had a pension of 147 crowns, which was very little even then, because the salary was several thousand in crowns. But of course - if she didn't live with her son and his family - she would have simply starved to death. And it was also because my grandfather, whom I have not experienced at all, was a builder and he built several apartment buildings in Dejvice. And of course, this had an impact on my grandmother's fate, because she had no support and no one, not even the state took care of her."

"And about those childhood experiences. I remember terribly - I was at my grandmother's in Uherské Hradiště - the occupation in August 1968. And I was twelve, I had a younger cousin. In Uherské Hradiště, they turned all the directions, people, someone turned all the directions round and round, so the Russian army drove around for about three hours, they couldn't get into the city, and when they finally got in, it was dangerous. Of course, I was a big hero at the age of twelve, so I waved my cousin and we went to have a look. There was a crowd of people. Grandma lived a short distance from the center and we joined the crowd and threatened the tanks with our fists. Then I almost got slapped a few times because it was amazing that grandma didn't have a heart attack. I remember it terribly, how powerful it was for me, as I actually already knew at the age of twelve what kind of power it was, when you are affected by the environment, when people radiate that horror and hatred and at the same time the bravery that they got there with their bare hands. So it was just a very powerful experience."

"We almost didn't sleep. We were of course among those who distributed a few sentences and signatures for various petitions, for various closed ones, so then we distributed. I distributed the tapes that were multiplied by students in Mánes. At that time, for example, the Caban brothers were sleeping in Mánes and they reproduced tapes about what was happening and how it was happening. It was distributed around the villages. In Prague, everyone knew what was happening, but further on in the surrounding towns, smaller towns and villages, actors did a huge amount of work there, when they drove around everywhere and told what was happening and distributed the tapes. Otherwise, I attended almost all the demonstrations that were held, and Honza was there, my husband was in the Drama Club when the government fell. After that, he took part in the Civic Forum and so on."