Pavel Marek

"The Cheb theatre has two buildings, the main one and the theatre club called 'D' or 'Déčko' that houses a rehearsal room and the theatre club. We opened the theatre club with the understanding that Martin Urban and Zdeněk Hedvábný would tell us what was going on, what had happened [on Národní třída] because they already had the documents and the photos. A lot of people flocked to the D. Even die-hard communists came, tasked to eliminate the whole thing, to say that it was the work of subversive elements. After about two hours of arguing upstairs - I wasn't there because I was guarding the main door - there was a big crowd of about a hundred and fifty people outside the club, shouting, 'We want to know what you're talking about.' They knew some communists were inside. Guys put two speakers in the windows and the people outside got a 'second-hand' idea of what was being talked about. It started to get very heated as people understood that something was really happening, that change was inevitable and that it was actually going to happen. Cheb had always been a 'stronghold of socialism' so nobody doubted there was no way for anything like that to happen in Cheb. But it did! Suddenly, Cheb was more alive than the surrounding towns and people came here with information and for information. Two hours later, the communists were leaving through the bunch of people in the square, shouting that they were reactionaries. I, of my own free will, cried: 'It's a lie, they are lying! The communists are lying to you!' Following this meeting, theatre director Jaroslav Vlk decided to allow the meetings in the main theatre. From then on, there were discussions in the theatre from five o'clock onwardsevery day for two weeks. People would come from Prague to talk about what was going on and what it should be now. There are recordings of that. Some say that nothing was happening in Cheb and that we only joined later on when it was obvious, but this is not true. It was more like we started doing these things in Cheb and it was catching on from us."