Mgr. Marian Lacko

“As the days and hours went by, we started to realise that something had begun, something unstoppable. We already knew that even the TV – the TV is full of artists, you know – was on the side of the revolution and that gave us courage and strength. In addition to that, we saw that our former grammar school student Heňa Hrinková from Rimavská Sobota was the leader of the student movement in Bratislava. She was on TV very often and we were proud of her. And we just knew that the general strike planned for 27 November was a sure thing. But we didn’t know who would be in charge of it, how things would go, whether there were State Security agents, policemen, you know, cops who would try to stop us, in a city like Rimavská Sobota. But what we saw on TV, and the fact that they were so open about it, reassured us that there was no way back. The leading position of the Communist Party had to be removed from the Constitution and that would be the first step in the process of the democratisation of society. Two days before the beginning of the revolution, the commotion was so strong that my friends called me on the phone: ‘Listen, let’s make a banner.’ So we secretly went to the House of Culture…’’

“There were ten, maybe twelve of us and we had statements from the Civic Forum, Public Against Violence, and the student movement which we had to read. But who should read them? There were no volunteers. Suddenly, Peter Lebovič turns to me: ‘You should go, you’ve already hosted some events in the House of Culture, and you know how to speak into the microphone.’ And I realised that someone had to go first, and I saw that none of them was likely to go. It was a risk because the square where we were supposed to be was right in front of the State Security building and there were agents watching us from the windows. They had binoculars, and some of them even rifles, probably unloaded but with scopes on them, so those who didn’t have binoculars could use scopes. But I decided to believe that nothing bad would happen, there had been events like this all over the republic for ten days already. Even in Rimavská Sobota, which is a small city and people say that every city like that is kind of a republic of its own. So I went first. I introduced myself and then I read the texts. And soon, others followed."