Martin Krajčovič

“In the beginning of November somebody rang the door bell exactly on day, when I overslept and missed my English class. I looked through the peep hole and there were two men standing outside. They were familiar to me from somewhere, so I opened the door. They happened to be from a military counter-intelligence service and allegedly, probably yet from times of my compulsory service, someone pressed charges against me for listening the Radio Free Europe. But back then, when the young ‘buddy’ told on us, we listened mostly to music. Resulting from that I had great problems also at school, because they found out I was missing at my classes. Even though it had no further consequences, this was enough to have made my life much more unpleasant.”

“Sometimes in January 1989 we happened to be at the Wenceslas Square in Prague and suddenly we realized there was going to be some demonstration. The square was empty, policemen were standing all around and people in lines were standing in front of empty shops. For example, in front of a goldsmith's shop there was a fifty meters long line of people moving, so at once a man standing right before the door moved to the end of line so that it looked like people were just shopping. But the policemen knew that the Wenceslas Square was closed and they urged the mob to disperse. Then they shouted the last appeal and we all noticed when walking down the square that behind the bars there were men prepared in white helmets holding shields and white long truncheons. Their eyes fumed with rage which their superiors knew how to provoke in them by various psychological methods. It was apparent how mad they were to see us there.”