Prof. RnDr., DrSc Tomáš Pačes

“It happened this way – we read some newspapers and out of a sudden we saw: ‘George Voskovec staring’ in some theatre play. And we knew each other with Werich, my parents and I wrote to Mr. Werich if he thinks I can meet Voskovec and perhaps invite him somewhere. And Mr. Werich wrote me: ‘Yes, for sure, visit him, say that you invite him for a sup and that Ferda Kokos from Prague recommended you to do it.’ And thus I, we bought tickets, went to see the play, Voskovec played the main role there. And during the pause I went to him and said to him: ‘Ferda Kokos from Prague sends me to invite you to a dinner.’ And he brightened up, he was very happy because he was of course terribly bored in Buffalo. Well, he came to us already after the lunch and spent the whole afternoon with us, until the evening. And we talked about everything. Well, and he awfully recommended us to stay there. He said: ‘Look, if you have some kind of talent, you have to make use of it at full blast and the USA is simply the country where you can capitalize on it very easily.’”

“So, I came from the excursion and there were many colleagues from the USA at that congress and I invited them to our house and we had a party in the evening on 20th. And they were at our place and we drank everything and it was good and then they left. And we slept and heard some rumbles but nothing, everything was alright. In the morning my wife and I took the car and decided to go from Pankrác, where we lived, to technics [Czech Technical University – trans.] at Kulaťák [Vítězné náměstí – trans.]. And we went and saw the queues before shops. We said to each other: ‘What is going on?’ And we went and out of a sudden when we crossed over the bridge, tanks drove against us and I stopped and asked someone there: ‘Excuse me, what is going on?’ And he was crying: ‘You do not know?! We are being occupied!’ Well, I just stared and did not know what to do, but I moved off, I passed tanks like this and arrived at Kulaťák. It was full of tanks. I came to the congress and people who have already started to clean up it there told me what is going on. And what was interesting – we went to threaten the tankmen there and to debate with them. And every department had, I think, at that time their own vnitrák [members of security bodies of Ministry of Interior – trans.] who administered it in this aspect. And our vnitrák was quite distinct because he was completely bald and not an old man. And suddenly I saw him threatening those Russkies, so they were incredibly cunning. Anyway, the congress had to end and they allowed a transport for those foreigners, so they had to leave but many of those geologists took plenty photos of the occupation and it was published later in various newspapers all over the world. And I went to say goodbye to my friends to the station and I must say tears were running down our cheeks when they were leaving because we though we see each other for the last time.”