"So we were making blue booklets (t/n: document of proof of incapacity for military service) and we were bringing people out of wandering to retirement. And the beautiful thing was in the nineties when there was some ethics conference in Oxford and I was already on the central ethics committee by then, so I was sent there and we were discussing what psychiatry was about in those days. I said that we were just getting people diagnosed with depression to retire, and some supernatural twit told me that it was an abuse of psychiatry. And I was quick enough to reply that the last occupation Britain experienced was in 1066, and that he shouldn't comment without experience."
"We served military service during our 4 year-studies in Motol. In Motol we got dressed in those nettle uniforms and we learned that the enemy was on the Salzburg-Munich line, and we drove him into Paris by evening. That was wonderful. There was nothing in Motol. There were two wooden barracks that Hitler had built for five years, and in them was a hospital, including a surgery, and an awful lot of mice and other rodents. And there were trenches, and a colleague who was from the engineers told me that a belt of their tanks was already bathing in the Bay of Biscay in the evening. That was awfully funny. And twice we were on a month's training exercise during summer holidays, which was no joke in the third year, because half of us failed pathology exam, so we studied pathology during that military training. And then basically we went for six months, and it's a good thing I served only six months because if it had been a month longer I'd still be in prison to this day."
"It was happening in 1969 and maybe early 1970. However, I was already out of Prague and heard it only second-hand. It was all those glorious anniversary days when they arrested dubious individuals, which included various homeless people and junkies, because even then it was possible to make drugs from codeine. These potential troublemakers were locked up in mental hospitals for one night from 21 August or from 24 February as a threat to public order and police guarded them. And then they released them. In our country there was basically no abuse of psychiatry, because psychiatrists were not so loyal to the regime and the regime knew it."
"At that time, the Club of Engaged Non-Party members, abbreviated KAN, was established, and that was one of the most threatening movements, so the comrades, because when we had and I did the KAN in Krč, I came there with it. And when we had the meetings, Mlynář, for example, came there and said, "Don't be silly, they're more terrified of you in Moscow than you are of Dubcek." There were over half a million people registered in the club already, so that was the first thing they banned after that 1968. They were paranoid, you know what paranoia is? Paranoia is a morbid suspicion based on an absolutely nonsensical construction."
"Well, that's how it started with the conspiracy, and it went on every week. Then the meetings took place in the Slavia café, where they were dragging the poor people. And it ended somehow before Christmas, when the bastard who called himself Svoboda came and said, 'Do you believe in God?' I said: 'Well, of course.' He says, 'How is that possible?' I like these kinds of questions from the longer-serving non-commissioned officer: How is this possible? I said: "God simply exists, so what should I do about it?" And then he's spent half an hour questioning if that's really the case or not. How can a person with a university degree in the field of science... But they were stupid, they had it folded forward, so sometimes after all, not that I wasn't really scared, I had repetitive dreams, it was very nice. Apparently, they were instructed that the people who are believers are harder to break."
"On February 14th, it was a beautiful day, such a winter, sunny, clear day, and we were having lunch, we had pancakes. We heard the air raid siren, but we ate peacefully, we lived in Smíchov, and in that open window on the other side, Dad suddenly saw a reflection of the fall of the house where the Dancing House stands today. There was a hole until 1990. SoIhe grabbed my little sister and ran into the basement with her. My mom and I finished the pancakes and then we went to the basement too. Well, that's when I abandoned my intentions to become a garbage man, because I really liked the firemen´s job."
Radkin Honzák was born on March 30, 1939 in Prague. He experienced the bombing of the city during the war and spent the last weeks with his family in the countryside with his grandfather. Both of his parents were involved in the domestic resistance. In 1956, Radkin managed to get to study medicine and became a psychiatrist. He first joined the hospital in Kosmonosy and then the Institute for Nutrition Research in Krč. In 1968, Radkin Honzák co-founded the Club of Engaged Non-Party Members in the Institute. He was questioned during normalization by the secret police. He changed a number of jobs; for example, he worked in a marriage counseling center or in a Bohnice hospital. Today, he still has his psychiatric practice and at the same time writes books and devotes himself to journalism.
