“I was there as a lay medic, I mostly delivered material where it was needed. Our seat was in one house in Italska Street and in Italska Street on the other side of Vinohradska Street there where the Central Union council is, that white tiled building, so there was a Russian tank positioned in such a way that the crew could oversee the whole Italska Street. In one moment, a young man was crossing the street. We heard shots and the young man was wounded in the stomach. He fell to the ground immediately but he remained conscious. At that time, I felt it that there was a total silence. And in that silence, we could only hear the boy saying his goodbyes to his family, to his girlfriend. I was a bit moved, naturally, there was a man bleeding to the pavement just in front of me, I said, ‘We can’t leave him there, we need to get him outta there.’
I walked out of the building and I held my medic bag with the red cross sign on my hand so that they would see I was a medic. Nothing was happening so I made one more step so that they could see my armband with the medic sign. Silence, again. I dared to go to the boy. I managed to tell him ‘Hey, it’s good now, we will sabe you now.’ In denial of all laws of physics, I first heard the shots and only then I fell to the ground. I was probably hit with stray bullets. It’s what the doctor in the hospital told me, that they were stray bullets. One bullet tore my shoulder, the other one remained lodged at my scapula. But I don’t know about this, though, because I guess I fell across the boy and I woke up only at the hospital. In the hospital, they took out the bullet at the scapula, they bandaged my wounds, they gave me some injections against the inflammation and said: ‘You need to get out of Prague right away, it’s expected that they will go and check the hospitals for gunshot wounds, they will be looking for the so-called counterrevolution.’”
"I witnessed dramatic events, such as the death of two boys who were squashed by a tank against a barricade. The bodies were laid in Italska St. There was a shop of a butcher, a butcher's workshop, and there was such a gate, a wide gate for trucks, and in that gate, there were laid the corpses shrouded in Czechoslovak flags, of those who fell."
"How did you feel about it, what were your impressions?"
"I didn't feel sorry, I was rather angry inside: 'What are they doing here, what do they want?' I know that the soldiers in the streets did not know much about it. Most of them were Kyrgyz, Kazakh, slant-eyed. They did not wear uniforms, just the insets for jackets, for fighting in winter. Only after about a week, these first line units were substituted by a regular army, those wore uniforms. The first line soldiers were then probably moved to Russia, somewhere to Ussuri. They were demoralised. What was interesting, they had maps where there was a map of Bohemia which was marked Germania in Cyrilic. So they thought they were in Germany. They were indeed surprised that we all here speak Russian. That we know it quite well, even better than some of the soldiers who had learnt Russian only in the army."
"Erm, obviously. I took the flg from storage and I started like a revolutionary, saying that I would go downtown. Mom tried to calm me down, she said, "There's shooting going on, you're going nowhere." So I stayed at home and listened to the radio, to the TV, to all news we were getting from sources which were not manipulated yet. In the afternoon, an announcement was aired, requesting that people donate blood, that Czech blood is shed around the Radio and that they invite all the blood donors, or, donors, to please come to the transfusion unit to donate blood. I had two donations past me so I was able to donate, with lab certification, they knew my blood group, antigens and the like, so I pretended that I go donte blood and went to Ruska Street to the transfusion unit.
I have to say, it was an interesting situation because people were standing in a queue to donate blood. One rarely experiences this. The doctors and nurses were looking for someone who would go to tht space of Italska and Vinohradska Streets as they had no staff there and the basic medical supplies ran out. So, I was equipped with such a leatherette bag with red cross on it, I got an arm and with a red cross and on board of the RN Praga truck, called Erena in slang, I was transported to the vicinity of Vinohradska St. Obviously, it is hard to talk about it today and people probably wouldn't understand it but there was a regular fighting going on. There was gun fire, barricades were being built. I was present when people of Prague managed to set a Russian tank on fire, in a side street off Vinohradska. The tank crew disbanded but at the time before the whole tank was set alight, when only the engine was on fire, dexterous people climbed on it and commenced dismouting of the machine gun which they carried away from the burning tank. I don't know where it ended up."
PaedDr. Karel Kovařovic was born on the 9th of June 1950 in Prague. Among his ancestors counted many an important figure of Czech science, culture and technology. The family adhered to the ideals of the First Czechoslovak Republic, they went to the Sokol sports club, voted for national socialists. Karel, influenced by his father, had been swimming and diving since young age.
As an eighteen-year-old, he experienced the fights at the Czechoslovak Radio on the 21th August 1968 when he worked there as a volunteer medic. He suffered two shot wounds while trying to save a wounded person. In January 1969, he joined a group of students for a walk from Příbram to Praha to attend the burial of Jan Palach. After having graduated from the Secondary Technical School of Geology, he was not admitted to a university, and he started working in various technical jobs. From 1985 on, he was employed at the swimming pool in Podolí as a rescue, swimming teacher and coach. At the same time, he started to study at the Faculty of Sports of the Charles University, he graduated with a red diploma [magna cum laude or similar, excellent grades for the whole time of study. Such students get their diploma in red case or cover instead of blue]. He authored numerous articles and text about teaching swimming. Lately, he has been active teaching swimming of the visually and mentally impaired. He got many awards. He was named the chief of Sokol [Falcon; association of sports clubs]
He was named the chief of the Podbělohorská chapter of Sokol and for many years, he has been a member of the Society of Friends for Discovery of the World.
Back facade of the Tyrš House. Memorial plaque of the Stones Expedition, an undertaking of a tourist group within Sokol sports clubs to bring stones from important mountains in Central Europe. 2005
Back facade of the Tyrš House. Memorial plaque of the Stones Expedition, an undertaking of a tourist group within Sokol sports clubs to bring stones from important mountains in Central Europe. 2005
