Lubomír Kantor

“Look, we sensed the relaxation in the society in the same way we sensed it 40 or 45 years ago. In every period they had eliminated us, we sensed something coming and had such a premonition that we would be free to scout again. We expected this in 89 and were nervous because it was not forthcoming. The revolutions were taking place in all the other countries – Hungary, Germany, Poland but nothing was happening here. For instance in Poland – they had their famous trade union organization called Solidarity that dismantled the Communist regime. It actually broke up from within. First and foremost, it fell apart in Russia. And what was the cause? U.S. economic pressure. The biggest merit goes to U.S. president-actor Reagan who introduced so-called Star wars that cost too much money and exhausted Russia. The Americans basically armed Russia to death. That was a new word which originates in that era – to arm to death.”

“In 68 there was one revolution and in 89 there was another one. If you put the two figures next to each other, they seem to reflect each other in a mirror. They’re the same numbers just upside down. We used this theme for our posters – 68 - 89. We did a bunch of posters at our place in the cellar. Our Lumír somewhere got the stuff we needed to build a secret little printing machine. In the cellar, we pressed the posters and put them in the yard. I still have doubts about the wisdom of this activity. I only later realized how risky it really was. I told my daughter, who led the 5th girls’ troop of the 78th Pioneer group in Orava, to get some of her girls to help us out in the cellar with the printing. We were printing all kinds of speeches of our long-time leader, Plajner. He remained the leader of the Junák for an incredibly long time. We also needed to print some applications for the Junák. Within an hour, there were 30 girls lined up of whom I chose four to help us with the printing. It was beautiful! However, I dare not to think what would have happened if someone had looked inside our cellar and had seen the girls print posters and leaflets. It could have ended in catastrophe. But the Czechoslovak people were already in such a state that nothing like that happened.”

“It happened during the morning warm-up. The airplanes were buzzing above our heads. Although everybody had expected them to attack us, nobody really wanted to realize it at that moment. Somebody made a joke: ‘they’re here already’. One brother, a Major of the Czechoslovak army, noted that these were not airplanes of our army. Suddenly, everybody got serious. Tácin, the husband of our friend Lída, went to his tent and put on the radio. It was the only radio we had in the camp. On the radio, we heard the horrors. Can you image? ‘Our country had been occupied by the armies of the Warsaw Pact. Remain calm, don’t panic. It will all clarify’. We immediately knew what was going on. The men were angry, they blasted and some wanted to go to the army barracks, get some rifles and give the Russians a fight. There was a lot of crying. Somebody even vomited! Nobody touched his breakfast. It was a terrible moment. In the midst of the worst awe, the leader of the forest school in Jesenice came and said: ‘it’s clear already, they’ll let us scrape along for two years and then they’ll shut us down completely.”