Zdeněk Pika

„Estébáci si pro mě chodili do práce i domů. Přišli i k mé matce, když jsem tam byl na návštěvě. Zazvonili, řekli matce, aby mě zavolala a nařídili, že musím jít s nimi. Jednou jsem se vzpíral, že s nimi nikam nepůjdu, protože mám s sebou psa. Řekli, ať ho vezmu s sebou, že se stavíme u nás doma. Pes byl naučený, že nesměl na sedadla, protože byl věčně zablácený. Ale když jsem mu někam ukázal, tak tam skočil. Tak jsem to udělal, když jsme nastupovali k estébákům do auta. Vyskočil si na sedadlo. V duchu jsem si myslel: 'Aspoň budete mít na mě vzpomínku.' Zavezli mě domů, tam jsem nechal psa a pokračovali jsme k nim na oddělení.“

„Když jsem přijal na hranici v Komárně, bylo přede mnou plno aut. Všechny pouštěli, ale když viděli moje jméno, hned mi nařídili zajet na bok. Prohledali naše auto i nás. S klukem jsme tam stáli nazí, dívali se, jestli něco nepašujeme. Přijeli jsem tam ráno a prohledávali nás do večera. Otevřeli i všechny zavařeniny. Manželka to rovnou házela do odpadků. Nakonec nás pustili. Chtěli jsme utéct přes Jugoslávii. Byl z toho soud a dostal jsem dva roky podmínku.“

"I worked in the Opava city hall and what I saw there, was just people trying to get as much for themselved as possible. Nothing else. (Why was that? Why did it not end up the way you imagined in November?) How could I change it? (I do not say I could have change anything. I am just asking, how you exlain it ended up this way.) One of those bad human characteristics prevailed. And which one? The kind of greed. And that has actually never changed."

"I had a volha car, type twenty-four, and my window was still clean as the state police kept looking in at the meter counter to know how far I went. They continually wanted to check, whether I went somewhere and how far it might have been. I took a piece of a plastic and covered my tachometer. That is how they began to persecute my following my signing the Chart 77. Of course I kept coming to the meetings to the Šavrdovas to Ostrava. There was a car in front of the house ith four men inside. In an hour I went back and they were still there. Who could have they be? Those were not ordinary people, but the secret state police men.“

"Each year I kept asking for a passpost. And year after year I got the same reply, that the state has no interest in my owning a passport. In September 1989 I got a letter I should go to get the passport. So I went there. ‚Are you Mr. Pika? Have you come to pick up your passpost?‘ He opened the drawer and pulled out my passport. ‚Here you go. Good bye.‘ And the only way I could explain it is that the coop, that happened later, was already prepared ahead. They knew already they would lose their power. I insist there was no revolution, but a power handover. Even Petr Pithart confirmed it not long ago at the Prague conference, he said just the same. It was really a power handover. I told Tomáš Hradílek right after the so called revolution. I asked him to explain that suddenly there was a revolution in Poland, Hungary and here too. And even in Russia. How was that even possible? Give me a reasoned explanation, please. ‚You cannot think about it that way,‘ Hradílek claimed. But that is how I think about it anyway.“

"Everyone from the Free Europe heard, that people from Opava, who are interested in the Chart, can visit Zdeněk Pika. In Mánesova street no. 8. Noone ever came. All were scared. My colleagues and friends were fans; they kept saying how brave I was and such. Yet they never did anything at all themselves. Signing something against the regime? Never. They didnt want to hear such thing. But they were scoffing at the system, the regime. How the communists are fucking it up here. Noone ever did anything at all. I was friends with a bloke, who was a radio amateur and had a transmitter. They asked him if he sent something out. So he hated the communists much, but still never did anything against them.“