Václav Žufan

"One of my friends and I, when we were sixteen, made a bet that who will join the Communist Party… just that if we were given millions or ten crowns, we wouldn't join the Communist Party. But we made that bet. Just such a goal that it was actually the purpose of my life, that communism would fall. A terribly secret wish, that's what I... it was there, but it wasn't really thought of, because I saw everywhere here that it was forever. Everywhere it was forever. I couldn't even imagine that it would fall. It was just impossible. Then when it fell, that was the end of life for me. Never again, there just won't be a bigger dream."

"First I was at an industrial college where I finished two years. I didn't enjoy it and went straight into apprenticeship, straight into second year, where I did two years and, bye, Klatovy. Actually, by the time I took the last final exams, there were already big problems, I had long hair. They wanted me to cut my hair. I was apprenticing at the Škoda factory, my father was a shop foreman at Škoda, so it was completely crazy for my father that everybody got their hair cut - and I was the only one who didn't. I said I wouldn't get a haircut. And they were like, I'm not going to the final test. I didn't care, I didn't care at all. In the end, of course, I passed the test, and that very day I just came home and went to the festival in Beroun, where I stayed for two days. By then I was like, I'm out of here. After the holidays, I didn't come back home. Then I even found out that my father was going to the military administration somewhere, asking them not to give me a deferment, to take me to the army. That was bad, we had a fight. Their dreams were dashed, and I started doing whatever I wanted. And that's what I've been doing to this day, actually."

“I was supposed to have a speech in Sušice at the monument, it was October 28th, it was a month before that [Velvet Revolution – editor´s note]. They already picked everyone around me and taken to jail and nobody said where I was. And I had to go to Sušice to get myself locked up. It was clear they would take me. I knew they would be in Klatovy at the station and at the bus stop. Then I remembered that there was one more stop, Klatovy Luby, and they certainly wouldn't be there. So I went around the whole thing, got on the train, I went through the whole train, which was full of demonstrators. I met a mother there who was already a communist. I came to Sušice, peeked out of the train and I see one crazy man next to the other, but not one from the back of the train, so I got out from behind. I just walked around Sušice quite still, because I knew them, these Klatovy pipes. Well, I came to the monument and there was just such a circle and they immediately picked me up and took me to the interrogation. There was a young man, I think his name was Pandrle, and an old Kučera who had been in charge of me for about ten years. Now that Pandrle was starting to put some papers in there for a questioning. Now we look at him with Kucera and he says, 'What are you doing? Mr. Žufan never says anything!'”

“For me, there was a demonstration where ten of us went and packed all of us. They packed us back home, not that they packed us there. I just got the bombs there, but again so no one could see it. But I immediately went to complain. Two state security policemen went towards me and punched me in my stomach, and in the face, then they went on, just like that. They picked up Placák and took him somewhere in the woods.”

“Sometime in the 1989 prior to the anniversary of August, I was invited again for interrogation to Barťák. No, they didn't invite me, they actually came to work for me and took me to Barťák. There they gave me signed the statement that the week before that [anniversary of the August invasion, note. ed.] I will disappear from Prague. I went to Klatovy thinking that it will be quiet. And they came for me in Klatovy. So the Klatovy state security took me to the interrogation, but they were the types of uncles. They knew my dad. I asked them what I was actually picked up for. Now he took a paper out of his pocket, so he read to me according to this and this paragraph that in four days I would be making disturbances on Wenceslas Square. I looked at him in amazement… fair enough. They wanted to take me to custody. They gave me handcuffs and brought me to the car, where they took my handcuffs off again and gave me an apple, total comfort. I was taken to Ostrov nad Ohří, Bory did not take me in. I was there for two days. And again those Klatovy uncles came for me. They came to a cell in Vitman's and arrested me in a cell. I haven't even been released yet and I was arrested in the cell because forty-eight hours had passed and I was arrested in the cell and taken me to Pankrac.”