Jarmila Johnová

“I signed it because I wanted to express my stance. I didn’t want to lie. Well, rather, I was lazy to lie. It seemed too complicated. I found it much easier, more sensible and nicer to tell everyone: ‘This is the way I see it and count me out.’ At work in the preservation office I encountered some situations. For instance they began organizing a visit of young ladies to the Russian soldiers’ barracks in Mladá Boleslav. I told them I wouldn’t go. They were like: ‘what do you mean, why won’t you go?!’ I replied: ‘Well, I won’t. Why should I?’ To keep explaining all the time was complicated. So I got rid of it this way. When I signed the Charter everyone knew it because the secret police had it all covered. So it was liberating in a way.”

“What I found paramount and liked about the 1960s was that we could speak freely about everything. For me this was an era of questioning. The most important thing of all was to find out – which I hadn’t – why our parents succumbed to that simplified and restrictive setup to which the communist way of thought yielded. Our family discussions were heated. I remember my dad even burst into tears once in the face of us blaming him. We never ascertained how they could come to believe it. They must have known about the political murders. That was inexcusable. They claimed that they realized that there were restrictions but WW II convinced them because it brought civilization almost to its end. They thought that for it not to happen again some sort of central management and control was required. Now that I speak of it, I recall my father once saying: ‘That was a sacrifice which had to be done for those things not to come back.’ Many people spoke in the same way. Pavel Kohout, also my first partner Jiří Dienstbier. His parents saw it similarly. Him who was in between the age of my parents and mine also felt it that way. For a long time he was stuck in it. In fact, I think Jirka Dienstbier’s heart was always in it in some way even though he really was a honest man.”