ak. soch. Petr Novák

"In this debate, and also because I trusted him, to Hanzík, I said to him, 'Dear Associate Professor.' I always called him 'Associate Professor.' In my soul, I felt that although he had entered the party at the age of seventeen, he was motivated by his grandfather, who was an anarchist. I understood that he had entered there out of initial enthusiasm and then could no longer get out because he would lose his career. He tried, according to what he said, to help people here and there from his position in the party. God knows how it really was, but I believe him. Under pressure to join the Communist Party, I told him that I had a grandfather who had unfortunately already died and whom I loved very much. He was a staunch anti-fascist and an equally staunch anti-communist. I couldn't join the Communist Party and then come to his grave and look him in the eyes."

"Later we were driving with my mom and dad, or they themselves, around the region and we were turning signs, pointers over. The aim was for Hradec Králové radio to be able to broadcast as long as possible. And it kept broadcasting because the cars were going around. My dad knew the region perfectly, as a photographer. He led them on different paths so that it was always a different path, but still always a circle. Then he also wrote some leaflets, which someone translated into Polish for him, because here in Náchod there were people from Poland that came here. In Jaroměř there was a tank convoy up to Náchod. There, my father and I distributed leaflets to those tanks that informed that there was no counter-revolution, that there was a democratization of normal socialism, that there was no reason to free us, that there was nothing to do. An officer got out of one tank, apparently a political officer or a political commissar, with a submachine gun. He fired the submachine gun, reached out, put it to my stomach, and said to my dad, 'Now you read it, or I'll shoot him!'

"The names of the signatories were broadcast on the Voice of America. We listened to it and we were happy that, for example, all the stonemasons from the quarry near Hořice signed it. I said to my wife, 'You see, stonemasons, they are a reliable kind.' Of course, they named me. A car arrived, and the chairman of the national committee and the secretary of culture from the district committee got out. - "Did they come to your house?" - "To our house. I was just casting in the studio. I said to myself, 'It's the one from the culture, maybe there could be a job from it...' I washed my hands from the plaster, I went downstairs from the studio, where these communists were sitting in the living room and smoking. There was an oppressive atmosphere, not just smoke. They said to me, 'How could you do this to us? Why did you do that? 'You can be sure you will never get any order anymore.”