“When I was in the second class, my father lost his job. At that time, it was possible to work in Gemany, so he applied for a job, so that he would work there and send us money home. He worked there on a railway but suddenly, his letters ceased to be delivered. Fourteen days, three weeks – nothing, no letter, no message. When my father came home for the first time, he told us, what had happened. They sat in a canteen; there were some Czechs who also worked there. They sat there after work and it was at the time, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, it was in June 1941. The Czechs spoke in Czech, of course, and one of them said: ‘It’s the end of Germany. When they attack the Russians, it will be the end of Germany. They will lose.’ Obviously, some Sudeten German who understood Czech sat there and he went to denounce them. They came soon for them, caught them all and escorted them to a prison in Potsdam.”
“What do you think that the forty years of totality did to the Czech society?” – “It is often said that it twisted greatly the mind of the people, of those generations, which had lived in those forty years. … I don’t know.” – “And do you feel that deformation?” – “I don’t know... Certainly, there has been some twisting. When you have always to keep out of the way, be careful, some twisting could not be avoided. But I don’t think it has changed significantly the character of the people, although it is very often proclaimed. But I don’t think so. Often, when I hear different opinions about this subject, I suppose, that sometimes people blame for it certain abuses of this society. But it is my own opinion, maybe a little heretic.”
“I remember, that people in our house mostly approved February. It was a house inhabited by lower class people. For example, we had a room and a kitchen, the room was occupied by a tenant.” – “How did your parents accepted February?” – “My father with mixed feelings, he was politically more mature. Not so my mother, she came from the country from very poor conditions. She thought that February will do something good for the poor and for bigger social justice, as they constantly proclaimed at that time. There wasn’t the experience we are having now. But my father didn’t believe it so much. He worked in a factory, in which some strike brigade was established. And once, he came home from the factory quite angry and said: ‘I milled some components and one from the strike brigade stood next to me and clocked it, whether I could not do it any faster.’ So he was angry, he was suspicious about some of he practices.”
“It was very dramatic. On May 7 [1945], German soldiers took the men in front of house and shot them all. We were in the cellar and on May 8 – by the way, it was my 12th birthday, the worst birthday in my life – we heard somebody knocking on a door. The women started to faint and to cry because they suppose they would meet the same fate as the men from the opposite house. Fortunately, it turned out well. They led them out in front of their tanks to force their passage through the barricade. So they drove them in front of the tanks and started to negotiate with a captain of the barricade. They declared truce, thus after half an hour, we heard the men coming down the stairs. They said, that the Germans told them: ‘Evacuate, if possible, so that you will be safe.’ So we went to Vršovice to a restaurant. They gave us dinner there and told us: ‘After a while, lorries will arrive and they will take you to Uhříněves.’ We slept there and suddenly, I heard on the radio: ‘We announce to all people of Prague that this morning, the Red Army entered the soil of free Prague.’ After an hour, tanks and lorries arrived , one of the lorries stopped and dirty, but smiling and singing soldiers heaved us onto the lorry us and brought us home to Prague, right in front of our house. And this experience caused such deep impression that I started to cheer for the Russians. What did I know about the previous affairs in the Soviet Union?”
“In the first days, it were the students, who were pulling the strings. I was and still am grateful to them, that they got down to it so audaciously. Even the head of our institute said: ‘They should take care; I’ve heard that the People’s Militias are being armed. They should take care to avoid any disaster .’ Although they also were aware of it, the students went into it quite fearlessly. I’m grateful for that to our students and to their leaders.” – “What relationship did you have to their activities?” – “I took it for their activity, which, however, was for the benefit of us all. From the first days, I realised, that they were doing all this in order to change radically conditions for all of us, which means for the whole nation. And that is why I sympathised with them.”
“In 1963, two men came to me again and said: ‘You know a Palestinian Arab here in Prague, don’t you? His name is Musa.’ I said: ‘Sure, I know him, he has been living here for years. I consider him to be my friend.’ And they said: ‘When you meet him again, could you tell us or write to us, what you talked about, whether he spoke about happenings in Israel, whether they didn’t asked him to work for them here. Simply, could you report about him from time to time?’ I winced. And they told me: ‘Think about it!’ I was thinking of it all day: ‘I should work as an informer?’ And increasingly, I reassured myself that I couldn’t do it. I also thought about what would happen, if I refused the collaboration, because I knew that they pressed on people and threaten them sometimes. But I decided not to worry any more and I phoned them to come to the Faculty. They came and I told them: ‘I’ve thought about it, but I can’t do it. I would consider it as treachery against him, I can’t do that.’ And they said: ‘We are sorry that you didn’t sleep because of it. ’ And after that, they let me be.”
Jaroslav Oliverius was born in 1933 at Žižkov in Prague from a poor family. His father worked in a factory and his mother took care of the house. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, his father lost his job and took an opportunity to work in Germany. There, he was in prison for some time, but in the end returned safely to Prague. On May 8, 1945, Oliverius spent his twelfth birthday under dramatic conditions from the liberation of Prague. Nevertheless, the whole family managed to leave Prague and spent the night at Uhříněves. The next day, a convoy of the Red Army stopped to take them home to Prague. Oliverius experienced the communist revolution in 1948 as an adolescent. He began to fully realize the reality of the communistic regime during his Arabic and Hebrew studies at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague (1951-1956). After his studies, he started to work at the Oriental Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and successfully applied for a scholarship for research in Egypt. Afterwards, he visited Egypt several times as a teacher of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University and after every return the secret police approached him to ask if some intelligence service had tried to contact him. In the 60’s, the secret police attempted to persuade him for collaboration, but Oliverius, with certain fear, refused to serve as an informer. This decision carried no severe consequences and Oliverius could continue with his pedagogical activities at the university quite normally. Some of his students, especially Jana Hybášková, were actively engaged in the Velvet revolution in 1989 and Oliverius appreciates it very much. Presently, he still teaches at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University.
