Karel Pokorný

"Well they came with tanks...As I said the regime wasn’t so powerful anymore. It wasn’t as dramatic as in Hungary...Nobody was thinking let’s disarm them and shoot them. We suggested they better go back home. That was“great". We told them: Go and have yourself hanged up somewhere beyond Ural. Someone set the tank on fire. To be honest, personally I was surprised that things didn’t get any worse. This aversion against Russians, they actually stayed very calm and behaved nicely. If I only imagine that we would do the same things like attacking the soldiers, calling them bad names etc. in 1939 when the German army came, it would have been a real disaster. But that didn’t happen with the Russian army. I would be naive to believe it was a pure humanity from them, but you just couldn’t overlook that these soldiers were perfectly trained to remain calm and not respond. I can hardly imagine that someone would make an order to shoot at the National Theater. The soldier’s nerves were tided as can be...But as I said already; when I stood in front of the Radio I expected the disaster..."

"The help we got from the people all around us was just incredible. It was for the first time since we moved that I got to talk to some Sudetenland Germans, who spoke Czech. In fact they were the only people we talk to at the beginning. They were describing the event of withdrawal or the situation before that during the war. The described it a little different than they taught us at school. Of course a little bit more colored. A Sudetenland German can’t admit that he was ever even little bit involved in the Republic break up. In fact they would often claim, that their loyalty toward the republic lasted until Hitler came, which wasn’t much of a truth too. Anyway the facts about the withdrawal, about not obeying the law and about the cruelty made a deep impression on me. I didn’t know any of it."

"We lived on Mirove namesti (Peace square=square in the central Prague). The whole night we could hear the planes above our heads. People used to have this mechanism - we called it wire radio. It was a radio with only one station. It was very convenient; you couldn’t listen to anything else. It worked through the wire, not through the antenna, so the signal was always first quality one. We had this mechanism at home too. It started to broadcast at about 5am. They kept repeating the same: This morning the associated troops of Soviet army crossed our borders. It all happened without any knowledge of Mr. President or the Prime minister...They were asking for people to stay calm. It just kept repeating itself. As I was still half asleep I thought it’s some kind of radio game. But as I woke up completely I realized that it was not any game. I have had this funny feeling already a couple of days ago. My parents lived in Trebicska Street, which was very close to the Sokol gym, so I told to myself I have to go there to see them. My mom was working in one of the offices in the Radio. I was thinking: I just hope that my mom didn’t go to work today, it will be crowded around the Radio as usual."

"My life wasn’t really that dramatic. We left to my wife’s cousin. He left to his wife’s cousin and so on. A lot of people were leaving at that time. Basically it was without any struggles. The offices were mainly cooperating. All you needed was an invitation letter. Even fake one. The border lines were not open anymore though. For us, all we needed to get the permission to leave the country was an invitation from my wife’s cousin. Then we received this stamp note in our passports that we are allowed to leave. All the three of us received it - me, my wife and our not even one year old son too. We left by train to Schwäbisch Gmündu, located nearby Stuttgart. A lot of the Sudetenland Germans settled down there. Or Germans who were not withdrawn and they knew many Czechs here. There was a lot of Czechs living in these Sudetenland regions."

"My life philosophy is that all your life you should try to be as much as tolerant as you can toward everything except for the violence. Live and let to live - this I would call my life credo. With all my heart I denounce any kind of extremism, if I may say so myself."

"That was the emigration. One of my Sokol brothers (Scouts) refused to carry the flag during the Sokol parade in Zurich, because there were the STB agents from Prague (STB=former communist secret state police) sitting in the audience. I must have carried the flag; because I was embarrassed to admit I was afraid of them too. I’m not saying that all the people who emigrated were chickens. This was only one example of the situation when the leader of the Sokol association wouldn’t dare to carry the flag in his freedom country. The Sokol festival took its place in Switzerland. He was afraid that someone from Prague may take a picture of him. That’s what exile is about too."