Iva Vodrážková

„First I thought that the Union of Socialist Youth called it all, that it´s a kind of a dirty trick. In any case I thought that we were certainly going to Albertov, but I don’t know, what´s going to happen. When we came to Albertov, it was simply amazing, suddenly so many people and now all the students, who were having a speech were incredible. I was thinking for myself, where does it come from in all those people? How come it is in the people now? How come, it wasn’t here all the time and now it´s awaken? I was thrilled and walked with Mirek the whole procession. From Albertov to Vyšehrad and then to Národní třída, where they diverted us and we got back all the way to the National theatre.“

„I didn’t sign the Chart and mainly due to the fact I was a connection between Prague and Olomouc. For I had my parents in Olomouc, so almost regularly I went there once a week or fortnight to see them. Any information I got in Prague meaning magazine Information on the Chart 77 or on unjustly persecuted and so on, I was bringing all the press to Olomouc and they distributed it further on from there. Sometimes I brought it in my underpants. I was afraid. I admit that it was not much fun. I suffered from a kind of paranoia that someone is following me and observing etc. As there were many people going to interrogations. We were going too, and several times there was a home search. Myself I went many times and it was unpleasant. I was no hero, who takes a pocket of materials and just goes with it. I was always afraid what´s going to happen and if the journey goes well. At the time it was not quite ideal. At the end of 1980s I was pretty exhausted and tired of everything, of all the persecution. They were arresting people instead of letting it all go lose, when Gorbačov came up on a scene, it was escalating here. People were actually arrested much more. We were on a hunger strike to defend political prisoners or we would run to release political prisoners or when they arrested someone we did an exhibition at Střelecký island. There they selected some of us and chased us off the island. So I was was engaged in a community a lot.“