František Novotný

"Our dad, because he was in the Union of Czech Farmers, they called him to the national committee and told him, 'You have to go there for the farmers from Žandov.' They gave him two more guys... We still had the house where we lived before the war and during the war, my grandmother was still there, so we lived there and in the morning we had to go to the assembly. I saw Gottwald come in and say, 'I'm just coming back from the Castle.' We were standing about fifty meters away from it, there were Slovaks with walaskas in support. I even saw a photograph, this was after November, where I saw myself there, maybe it's in some archive, in Red Law. The guys from Zandov were there. Then we couldn't get to Krč, it was a big madhouse, and then we took the train home. I saw Široký, Nejedlý, these potentates, the Minister of the Interior Nosek. Gottwald, when he came and announced that the President had accepted his terms. People were shouting and cheering, there were people from the factories, mostly communists, who were counting on it. It was a big mistake that those ministers resigned. If they had let it go, maybe things would have gone differently."

"At 12:33 the radio was calling for help, it was a nice day, so people ran out into the streets and set up barricades. We were on Na Dvorcích Street, today it is Antala Stashko Street, there was a pub called U Portů, opposite was Včela, something like Jednota, there they dragged the counters from the pub, also the bar counters and tables, they overturned tram No. 13, barricades were erected. The radio was calling for help, every once in a while it was speaking Russian, English, German. I always ran outside, my mother was standing on the corner too, we watched them making a barricade, the guys put paving stones on it. Then it calmed down... We were still sleeping at home, and then on the morning of May 6, we went to the basement because there was a big noise in the street, there was already shooting. There they shot one Jan Komeda, a barricader. The barricade was weak and poorly armed. On May 7, we were in the cellar, that was the worst day of the revolution. The Germans deployed heavy artillery and tanks from Benesov and broke through our barricade, as I have already mentioned. We had to go out of the cellar in a parade. They drove us as hostages all the way to today's metro station C Budějovická, where there was a gap and we had to lie down on the ground. There were soldiers between us, shooting on the right with small cannons, and planes were flying above us, the English. We had to hold out our hand and wave that we were surrendering. At about five o'clock in the afternoon that commander over there said that the women who had children could go back to their houses. There were three of us, the mother took the littlest one in her arms, he was four months old. I went with my aunt after her to get as many people as possible to their apartments. That's how we got to the houses, there were smashed broken windows, a mess on the streets, confusion, patrons thrown out. I went into the apartment, the German took me by the collar, we went into the room, he opened the door, the closet, uncovered if there were any weapons, looked under the bed, and then he said it was 'gut', so they went out."