Vratislav Cvejn

"And so I stood there under the bridge, got off my bike, cleared myself a little to the side, and the Russian boys with submachine guns jumped out of the truck. They watched what was happening and one of them shot a few times in the facade in front of me as a precaution. At the time, it was the district national committee building. When this tense moment was over, I preferred to pack up and go home. Later, I took pictures of the dimples in the facade to prove that I was there. Then I still remember that they started to worry about whether there would be a war or not and if we were supplied and we started going with nets, where there is still something to buy, in which shop they still have buns and in which they no longer. The shops were bought by evening. Then the food was hard to find. But on the other hand, that we were hungry did not happen."

"Velvet Revolution. We were not surprised at all. I know people at work said to themselves, 'What do they want? What happens to anyone and what don´t they like? ‘But we knew why it was. I was so shy, but most of my peers were active in the Civic Forums and did and arranged a lot. We wrote posters, we went to spread banners in front of the town hall. We did all that. I was also in the plant in the Civic Forum, but I wasn't fast enough for these guys. From the beginning, I toured the buildings with a commission and convinced people that we would remake the ROH [Revolutionary Trade Union Movement] and things like that, but the people who could do it switched sides in a month or two and took back the activity. Only those who were corrupt by the harsh communism fell away, and those who were too clever for themselves took over. I know that those in our plant were smart and suddenly wanted to be a leader, and in the end it turned out that they didn't agree and the construction plant fell apart in two years. As the totalitarian leadership ceased to be, so it ceased to be the leadership as such. New economic structures had to be created. The whole economy had to be reborn because it ceased to be directive."