Petr Novotný

„Our band (Křečový žíly) played at different underground festivals around the country and we also organized a series of festivals in Havlíčkuv Brod that we named Under That Watchtower (Pod tou strážní věží). The festival took place in a quarry near where my grandmother lived. My grandfather was an engineer and his company built train tunnels around the country. In 1948 they (the communists) took everything away and our family moved. His last project was a tunnel from Havlíčkuv Brod in the direction to Brno. We brought power from my grandmother’s small house with extension cords – 300 to 400 meters away. Our highlight came in 1986. There was a festival in Lipnice which attracted opponents of the regime who wore long hair (máničky) and we organized a parallel underground festival that was attended by 200 – 300 people. The local StB did not know about our fest, which caused them trouble with their bosses. We were in trouble as well, but not as much trouble as the StB unit in Havlíčkuv Brod.“

„When I was sixteen our band Křečový žíly had a concert here in Havlíčkuv Brod. Our first show was in my prefab tenement building, it was in the baby stroller storage room. The kids from the building came down for the show as well as our friends who played ice hockey and who later played for the national squad as well as a local gossipmonger Ms. Krejčová. Everyone was excited about the show and there was a lot of noise surrounding the band so the local chapter of the Socialist Youth League invited us to perform our first „official“ concert. It was without an audition. Three songs into the show they cut the power and wanted to end the performance. We continued playing though because you could hear the drums, we had an acoustic guitar with us and the singer had a very strong voice so we basically ended up playing the whole show. This made us very popular. Very few people even heard our music but the name Křečový žíly became very trendy.“

“There was an StB officer who lived in a house on our block. I regularly ran into him on my way to the bus stop. It was unpleasant to have contact with someone who constantly watches over you and is out to get you. He met with my school principal and I was called in to get an earful. It was not pleasant.”

„We arrived in Havlíčkova Borová and the village was full of cops, some in uniform and some in plain clothes. They used to carry concealed cameras. Theoretically there could be plenty of footage somewhere, I don’t know if these archives were destroyed or not. I remember the cops had these special leather bags – the lenses were in this part of the bag – and they filmed people discreetly. They filmed everybody. There was a helicopter overhead and the march ended in (Havlíčkova) Borová. I drove to Borová and stayed there for a while and then drove back with Tomáš Holenda. When we drove out of Borová the cops pulled us over and searched the car. They were after signature sheets which we no longer had. So they found nothing.“

“The winners were being announced at the Grenoble Olympic stadium and I realized that I am looking at the Czech flag. I said to myself ‘I am actually here representing the Czech Republic.’ It did not occur to me before I saw all the flags – the Czech flag being one of them. Then I realized I am the only other Czech who received a medal at this stadium besides Jiří Raška who dominated the ski jump (in 1968).

“The StB detained a young lady and were beating her, so I went over there to intervene and of course I became next in line. One of the policemen was beating on me, but since I had my school bag it didn’t hurt. They took the young lady and me to the local school from which they operated. An interrogation followed and they asked the usual questions. Where am I from, why was I there and so on. They also said that I resisted arrest and that I was rude to the officer. ‘Resisting arrest? Me?’ I answered. ‘I just stood there and the officer hit me while I tried to defend the young lady from a brutal beating.’ At the time I read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and of course I provoked them by speaking properly, by the book, which drove them into a frenzy. They beat my back with batons and this time I had no school bag. I resisted, passively resisted, and the brutal interrogation went on for some time. I found out what it is like to get a beating, a real beating. In the end they kicked me down the stairs and outside of the school building.”