"We were terrified. The planes were already flying, and we got in the car and piled our stuff in and rushed so we could still drive on the roads. The tanks were driving in the opposite direction. They were driving over an unmown field. The gas stations were occupied by Russian soldiers. They were wearing those helmets. They all looked like they came from Mongolia. They must have put some in there who had no idea about Europe because they didn't know what was going on. These soldiers looked terrified. At least it looked that way to me. And as one of them took off and pedalled his motorcycle into the square, it went bang, and they all flew and immediately pulled their guns. We drove down the road, scared because of those guns, and we went back to Chomutov, where we had come from the day before. I immediately took my sister, because it was still the holidays, and such a centre was the CSM (Czechoslovak Youth Union). Their building was opposite the theatre. I know that they had a “cyclostyle” (mimeograph) there. There was a permit for that. They were not allowed to have such a thing just like that. Even when I was in school later on in the 70s, they got one and they had to have it approved as to what they could print on it. The active youth from all over the city would meet at that CSM and print flyers there. Somebody had to “spin it" and they had to put ink in it. It's not like today. So they printed leaflets - idite damoj. So the main thing was to make the Russians go away."
"I graduated in Chomutov. That was the most beautiful time of my life, the spring of '68. Not only because I was young, full of vigour and optimism, but I could feel the transformation and release even then at that age of 18. I was staring in amasement. For example May 1st '68 in Chomutov. There was a barrel by the cinema. People used to take off their rings and throw them into the barrel. It must have been such a great treasure if they did it in every town. Where it ended up, I don't know. There were already like 60 centimeters of chains and gold things. And we graduated by this time. So there was a lot of excitement."
"Zulova didn't have a gym, just an old “Sokol Hall" with rotten equipment, with bell wire hanging instead of baskets. It was damp, there were photos of football players from the 50s. Even my milk froze in the locker room. That was '84. When we had gym class, I'd leave the school with two buckets of coal and two buckets of wood and went down to the gymnasium to heat the space. I'd kneel down and stuff paper and newspapers in there. The wet newspaper didn't catch, and the wet wood neither, but I set the fire. The kids played rugby or football in the high, deep snow to keep warm. Or in the gym, they'd smash a ball at each other. There wasn't even room for a captain, so they'd play against the wall and white plaster would fall. It was just awful. It was the first time I showed them a basketball because they didn't know anything like it. There was no money. The director was in favour of visits to the Russian barracks, so it was mainly to save money so that there would be money for presents for the Russian soldiers and for bouquets for the Russian soldiers."
"The leaflets were pinned to the gates or thrown into mailboxes and so on. And the signs were turned over like in the movie Rebels. So that was the main activity, because they would go into Chomutov and we send them back to the mountains instead of to Prague. So we were turning the signposts over, which was a common under-field activity. So I wasn't heroically acting, I was just distributing leaflets."
Eva Müllerová was born on May 12, 1950 in Prague, the eldest of three children of parents Jiří and Jindra Keller. During World War II, the Nazis executed her grandfather Jiri Keller in Tábor for approving the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Eva Müller recalls very strongly the relaxed atmosphere of the spring of 1968 and the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in August of that year, which she experienced in Chomutov. She herself was involved in the distribution of anti-occupation leaflets. In 1970, her father was expelled from the Communist Party and removed from his position as director of the chain stores in Česká Ves during the normalisation inspections. Eva Müllerová graduated from the Faculty of Education and taught PE, Russian and several other subjects at various schools around the country until her retirement. She experienced the Velvet Revolution in Jeseník, where she was living at the time of the interview in 2021.
