Jaroslav Ondráček

“The Central Committee did nothing for a week. It took them a week to call a meeting. It only took place on 24 November where I made an appearance, saying: ‘Dear all, we have lost on 17 November at Wenceslas Square. You won’t be able to save anything now because all those former so-called communists who were in various functions, made an immediate U-turn.’ The director of the TV told me: ‘Man, I am left behind alone. I am the only communist in Czechoslovak TV.’ I don’t know how many employees there were at the time but I guess five hundred at least.”

“The problem with Šverma mine was also that it was ranked in the second danger category which meant that there was a risk of methane explosion. So for instance a regular switch was a box eighty times sixty times sixty centimeters large. It was a waterproof one so that nothing would get in. It all cost enormous amount of money and we had to act in a way not to cause any trouble. This means that the methane had to be measured and when there was a higher concentration, we couldn’t have worked. During our training we learned what was a shovel and a pneumatic drill. But suddenly we got there and found plowing machines. Those machines included a saw of sorts, with blades undercutting the mining wall which would then be scooped away. We learned to operate this. We learned to operate combines. Well, we just spent our lives learning stuff.”