Milan Pištěk

"I had a platonic love at elementary school, it was Hanka Řešátková. Coincidentally, she was the daughter of the other deputy, that is, my father's colleague. And then our teacher Průcha, the deputy principal, when we were moving from classroom to classroom, he ordered us . . . and this was already in the sixth or seventh grade . . . that we had to hold hands with Hanka and walk at the very end of the line. And then he was saying to all the children: 'See? These are the fat cats we're going to clamp down.' And we looked like idiots, right? However, my mother said . . . she was worried about me and my brother . . . suddenly there were such vindictive tendencies, or I could say, envy, and there were people who were willing to take revenge on children, not only on the parents."

"My parents were both in the Communist Party, and they actually believed in it, this generation. It was understandable at the time since it was shortly after the war. That generation had experienced Munich, and they didn’t trust the West. They took the Munich betrayal quite like - it was not pleasant. So in goodwill, in bona fide, they entered the party and were set to build new tomorrows. Well, my father, apart from being in the party, was quite an expert in textiles - especially when it came to the production of textiles. So in Šluknov, he worked his way up to become the director of the factory, and then he got the offer to go to Benešov nad Ploučnicí. And there, he worked as a production-technical deputy. And because conditions were easing, he travelled a lot around the world. He wrote for professional magazines (Swiss, French and German), and the business was quite prosperous - they exported to Western countries. From threads..., because it was yarns, threads and bedding, these kinds of products. In 1968 it was... or in other words, the family in Benešov nad Ploučnicí was more or less VIP, my father was the deputy general director, and we had quite a good life. My dad had a large company apartment, and we bought an MB [Škoda 1000 MB car, trans.]. For the conditions of the time, we belonged to the upper class in Benešov nad Ploučnicí. And as soon as it hit in 1968, no normalization actually happened yet, a lot of all kinds of envious people appeared. And the so-called checks were immediately carried out. And so my nice dad was kicked out of that group, and then he was kicked out of that job as well."

"There, the hair restrictions started in my second or third grade. It came from– or it was organized by Comrade Headmaster Stybal, who checked the length of the students’ hair as they were coming to school. It even resulted in such desperation that we bought short wigs and stuffed our hair under them. But it didn't take long, it was revealed very soon. We were at war with the faculty, which was, however, not completely unified, half of them were tolerant and half benevolent . . . those were, for example, architects and technicians who really didn't care. And then there were Czech language and Russian language teachers who just revelled in it, and they bossed us around. So it was difficult there from the second, or third year on. I would say that I enjoyed the defiance. When, for example, we had compulsory books, all rubbish, we simply didn't read them. And I, for example, read the entire Bible in the original language, and I actually enjoyed it, the Bible. Back then, it was almost semi-banned. In 1968, when there was a good pastor who wanted to attract the youth, he would play music in the church. I experienced this in Benešov nad Ploučnicí, but usually, a policeman would stand outside and write down the names of the children who went there. And when someone distinguished themself by going to church - and we went there for these reasons, not because of deep faith–actually to this day, I'm a non-believer–but because I would piss off the regime by reading the Bible and I'll know it. That’s what I really enjoyed."

“By the way, I also experienced one setsec [State security, trans.] recording in September 1989, it was in Loučky in Litvínov. And I was already playing in the band Šanov, it was a festival organized by Pepa Kudlička, at that time, I think he led the dramaturgy of the ‘Quite a small theater’ as a club. The Šanov band was then registered under KAS, the Cultural and Social Center of Ústí nad Labem. It was all fake, Růžička arranged it by falsifying the playback block. Well, after that performance in Loučky near Litvínov, our founder was confronted by the Cultural and Social Center, which was based in today's Nároďák [National House, trans.], and they sent us a denunciation. It was an official letter–and it amused me at the time–where it was written that the the band Šanov has an adverse influence on the young generation. And especially because of using vulgarisms during their performances and in their music production. And now in that official jargon and on that official letter with the letterhead of Quite a small theater there were . . . vulgarisms, such as– and now there was shit and ass, and underneath it a signature of Pepa Kudlička and a stamp. Well, that's when the management of the Cultural Center of Ústí nad Labem called us, which was Mr Kymlička and Mr Špás, and they said: ‘Look, you have received this report.’ And they called me and Petr Růžička, the McLaren of Teplice, who was the manager of the Šanov band. And we lied and said, ‘No, we don’t say stuff like that, it must be a mistake, this thing.’ And they took out a video tape and put it in the player and they said: ‘Oh, really? So like this!’ But since it was already September 1989 and since the society was already easing up a little, Mr Kymlička and Mr Špás were suddenly somewhat benevolent and said: ‘Normally we should send it to Comrade Michalová to the Department of Culture, but since it’s you, we won’t do it. But you will go redo the playbacks. You have to make a new playback.’ And they set the date for 19 November 1989. And in the meantime we went to Wrocław for the well-known festival organized by the University of Wrocław, it was actually a meeting of Czech dissidents and culturally active personalities and politically active dissident personalities. Then we played in Poland a few more times. And we really returned to go redo the playbacks, that was Sunday November 19th. So now we performed on the 19th of November, when things were really moving, because it hit Prague on the 17th. These people around culture already knew where it was headed. We showed up there for the playbacks, we had fake lyrics which had to be submitted typed on a typewriter. All vulgarities were removed, it was all edited. They chose three songs from the repertoire. So we performed it without the vulgarisms. Ivan Dostál came out of the door on which there was written 'playback commission'–he then led the cultural center after the revolution–and he said: 'Guys, you are really good! This is great!' So we stood there surprised. Of course, we knew that if it wasn't for November 17th, they would have kicked us out of the recording room. But now, they knew where it was headed and they were leaning in the right direction. So they gave us the highest possible recognition and on November 19th, we had approved playbacks which, however, we no longer needed at all. Various concerts broke out for all decent people, and in the end we even played with Šanov in Prague's Lucerna.”