"In 1968, when the Russians invaded Prague, I was in Prague with a friend. I had shot a film there and had a lot of friends, wonderful friends. And we were out at night and then a girl came running in and was crying and said - the Russians are coming. And we didn't understand. These are your friends, what's the fuss about? That night, I didn't know where I was at all. We tried to find our way home somehow. And then I ended up in a café in Wenceslas Square and there were friends there too. And then people walked past with a bloody flag and a woman underneath and they sang the anthem. Kde domov můj, voda hučí po lučinách... And there was a broadcast from Radio Pilsen and they said: we are occupied. If we play the anthem now, then they'll know what's going on. And that affected me like crazy. Then I suddenly became a Czech and stood in solidarity, walking the streets. Then we stood at the channel and young Czechs offered us cigarettes... There were insane scenes, soldiers crying, young boys who didn't even know what they were doing there. And the anthem, my goodness… And then we organized through the embassies, we didn't know how to get home, how to get out. All the signs were twisted, we didn't know if the borders were closed. And then I had a family, my friends and my girlfriend, who said they would come with me. And then I had one in the trunk and didn't know how we would get out. We drove out in columns between the tanks with a Swiss or Austrian flag, and that was an incredible experience for me. Batteries were needed for portable radios. When I got home to Munich, I collected batteries from all the shops. And transistor radios. And then I drove to the border again and didn't know how to distribute all of it."
"I also drove to Děčín in a VW Beetle. It was still a Russian barracks at the time. At the bottom, near the staircase (there is such a long staircase), there was a barrier beam. I drove there, and there was a truck [in front of me] and it drove through, so I followed behind it and went up there too. And up there at the castle entrance, there was another barrier beam. And then they sent me back. That was my first time in Děčín. When I went up there, I didn't care about the barracks, I just wanted to take a look. Everything was completely neglected. Now it's magnificent. It's really a great joy when a building you have a connection to hasn't fallen into disrepair or been abused, that a factory hasn't been made out of it. At this time, [the castle] is appreciated, and people know that the Děčín Castle is an important symbol of the region.
"We were in Brno and I think we had two or three suitcases. My mother was able to pack things in Kwassitz, probably after the camp, I don't know. There were incredibly unnecessary things [in the suitcases], as we hadn't had the experience yet, [to know] what is important, etc. Father had a suitcase with documents and such. And so we came to Brno and in Brno, my father organized, through a friend, a Czech communist he was friends with, he organized a truck. And it drove us from Brno to the border – I don't know what the Czech border is called where Waidhofen an der Thaya is. And I remember that very well. We arrived at the border and the border guards and the border guards' wives opened our suitcases and took things from us. From me, they took a little Prague Jesus that I had been holding on to. These are memories that are incomprehensible. I didn't understand it, and my parents said it didn't matter. Then my father had a suitcase in his hand and told my oldest brother, ‘Over there, where the red flag is, that's Austria. And there's a man standing there waving a handkerchief. A relative, a Gudenus. If something happens to me, take the suitcase and run’. That was an amazing remark. And then we crossed the border to the Gudenuses and were in Waidhofen."
Austrian actor Friedrich von Thun (born Friedrich Thun-Hohenstein) was born on June 30, 1942, during the war at the family castle in Kvasice in the Kroměříž region. His father, Arnošt (Ernst), mobilized with the Czechoslovak army in 1938 and in 1939 signed a noble declaration of solidarity with the Czech nation. However, in 1943, he accepted German citizenship. As a result, the family faced violence, expropriation, and a long stay in an internment camp in Kroměříž after the war. In 1948, they lived in Brno, and after warnings from Czech friends, they left for Austria just before the February coup. There, Friedrich discovered his acting talents and managed to establish himself in this profession, dedicating his entire life to it, which is not common among nobility. Meanwhile, his father worked as Otto von Habsburg’s secretary for many years. Friedrich von Thun visited his native country from the 1960s onward as an actor; he was even there for filming in August 1968. He witnessed the occupation from close proximity in Prague at Wenceslas Square; at that moment, he “felt Czech” and even drove one of his Czech acquaintances to Germany in the trunk of his car. Friedrich von Thun is primarily known to Czech audiences for his role in the post-revolutionary series “Náhrdelník” (The Necklace), where he played a German from Prague alongside Libuše Šafránková, or for his role in the cult film “Schindler’s List.” His family was not affected by restitution after 1989, but Friedrich von Thun does not complain about fate: “Fate played its cards for me. If we had stayed at home, maybe instead of acting, I would be growing turnips.”
