"Pamatuji si, jak to bylo na Staroměstském náměstí. Vidím to dodnes, jak nás vytlačili auty. Rychle jsme utíkali před proudy vody, někteří do metra. Hrozné. Mě byla hanba, protože už toho 28. října 1988 byla ve vzduchu cítit změna. Bylo vidět, že to takhle dál nejde. A přesto to byla česká Veřejná bezpečnost, která do českých lidí stříkala vodou, vyzývala nás k rozchodu. Na to se nedá zapomenout. Pak jsem se samozřejmě velice rád dostal do autobusu. Mokrý jsem nebyl, protože jsem byl natolik chytrý, že jsem měl deštník a uměl jsem před tím proudem vody utéct. Ostatně kdyby mě tím velkým proudem vody zasáhli, tak by mě to odneslo i s tím deštníkem."
"Vždycky, když bylo nějaké výročí, například 21. srpen, 9. května nebo 1. máj, tak telefonovali do kamenolomu a ptali se, jestli je soudruh Vízek v práci. Jednou jedinkrát se tam byl někdo podívat, jestli je pravda, že pracuji manuálně. To musel být někdo navedený, protože to bylo to pod záminkou, že chce vyrobit nějaký pomník a pak z toho sešlo. Zajímavé ale bylo, že chtěl projít lom a chtěl mě vidět. Byl určitě překvapený, jak jsem chodil. Tenkrát byla zima, měl jsem tak zvané vaťáky, chrániče sluchu, boty s ocelovou špičkou. Byla na mě pohled strašný, takže věřil, že opravdu pracuji manuálně. A jak jsem bydlel v ulici Budovatelů, tak jsem se dodatečně dozvěděl, že naproti mému bytu byla garsonka, která sloužila jako konspirační byt. A přímo v našem paneláku bydlel člověk, který o mě podával informace."
"My jsme jako delegáti Vysočanského sjezdu byli izolováni, dostali jsme se do vysočanské továrny, protože jsme nevěděli, co s námi bude. Chtěli jsme, aby nás dělníci ČKD kryli. Nevěděli jsme, jestli nás armáda všechny zatkne, jestli nás někam neodvezou, jestli nedojde k nějaké represi. Proto jsme po Praze nechodili, byli jsme v areálu vysočanské fabriky. Mezi dělníky, kteří byli šokováni tak jako my."
"Toho 21. srpna jsme přijeli s manželkou a dětmi z Moravy. To bylo pro nás velmi krušné, protože doma jsme neměli vůbec nic, ani trochu mléka, rohlík, vůbec nic. Ráno, když jsem zapnul rozhlas, tak jsem slyšel, co se děje. Já jsem myslel, že je to snad nějaká rozhlasová hra. Pro mě to byl šok. Bohužel jsem nechal manželku s těma dvěma dětmi doma. Naštěstí bydleli rodiče hned vedle, takže se o manželku a ty dvě děti dovedli postarat. Já jsem odešel na sekretariát a připravoval jsem se na tu roli, kterou jsem měl, a to plnit povinnosti zvoleného delegáta sjezdu. Tatínek u rádia tehdy plakal, to, co se stalo, byl pro něj obrovský šok. Přestože miloval Sovětský svaz a věřil komunistické straně, tak něco takového bylo i pro něj obrovský šok. Doma jsem několik dní nebyl."
"Řeknu to otevřeně, byl jsem na to docela pyšný. Do strany jsem tehdy vstupoval docela rád, protože se mi zdálo, se strana docela mění. Stalina odsoudili a odstranili jej z mauzolea, Klementa Gottwalda odstranili z vrchu Vítkova, političtí vězni byli rehabilitováni. Najednou jsem viděl, že se strana sama nad sebou zamyslela a začala kritizovat své postupy. Přišlo mi fantastické, že partaj, která měla vše pod palcem, začala o sobě pochybovat a začala se sebekritikou. To na mě jako na osmnáctiletého kluka velice zapůsobilo a myslel jsem, že strana dostala rozum. V 60. letech jsem pochopil, že rozum nedostala. To se ukázalo i v roce 1968.”
"At that time, I was elected a delegate to the Vysočany Congress. You may remember that when in August, when the army came here on August 21, a congress was held in Vysočany, Prague, on August 23. I was elected a delegate for culture and education there. Of the six, I suspect there were six of us, I was the youngest. It seems to me that for this reason I am probably the last living of our delegates to the congress of Jablonec. We got to Vysočany by car, inscriptions everywhere, left, right. ´Go right back home! ’, Lenin, wake up, Brezhnev went mad,” and such various slogans. We didn't know what would happen to us. We didn't know what would happen. If the congress delegates don't disperse us, if they don't arrest us, if we don't lose our lives in the end. But the whole nation, both Slovak and Czech, basically arose and the Soviets failed to provoke such an action anywhere that they could prove to the world that there really was a counter-revolution."
"And because I, as a teacher, didn't want to sign the agreement that the invasion was necessary and that it was in fact helping us, I just had to leave. First from Jablonec nad Nisou, I was not allowed to teach here. I was the deputy director in Pivovarská, I was not allowed to maintain the function, I was not allowed to be a class teacher, I had to teach in Lučany. I stayed there for a while. In the end, I was not even allowed to be a lecturer at the so-called socialist academy, it was said at the time. And in the end I had to go to the quarry, because someone had to feed the family. I already had four children, and my wife could not work. And then the time was interesting in that the working class, it was said, had a leading role in society. That is, they made me a worker, that is, I became a member of the ruling working class, as it was said at the time, which was, of course, stupid, no worker thought he was running this society."
"I moved from the quarry to education. So it happened that the teachers in the Jablonec region wrote a petition, noticed that the teacher was working manually in a nearby quarry, and came to the conclusion that I should return. And that petition influenced my return. I did not return to the class, but I became something we today call the director of the school office. I had the job for six years, until 1996. It was not an easy time, because many school principals had to quit, there were bankruptcies and competitions in schools. According to the lustration law at the time, everyone had to bring a confirmation and an affidavit that they were not agents or collaborators of the State Security. The one who did not bring it could not be the principal of the school, or the kindergarten, or even primary or secondary school. Let’s compare this to what is in the highest position today, Prime Minister. As the director of the school office, I had to stop the work of many excellent school principals only because, out of fear or lack of courage, they did not say what they thought and agreed to the entry of troops, they eventually became collaborators of the State Security. Maybe they didn't hurt anyone, but they couldn't bring a lustration certificate, and by law I had to remove them from office, they couldn't make a school principal. So, I sometimes hurt good people, teachers, excellent school principals, and regret that. But that revolutionary era sometimes required such revolutionary interventions."
"When [Jan Palach] had a funeral, it was something very sad. There were tears in everyone's eyes. And that's why I was very sorry about how quickly everything was forgotten. As in 1969, it was no longer the Soviet army, but the Czech police, the Czech People's Militia, the Czech army unfortunately behaved towards people who, a year after the August invasion, tried to express their disapproval of the stay of foreign troops in our territory, I was sorry about that. How many people, Czechs and Slovaks, simply adapted. How we, who were badly engaged, who were fired from our jobs, persecuted in all sorts of ways, and who became second-class citizens, so to speak, as few people were just interested. I was sorry."
František Vízek was born on November 22, 1940 in Morkovice in Moravia. After graduating in 1958, he started working as a teacher in Josefov Důl, in 1967 he graduated from the Faculty of Education of the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem in the field of mathematics and geography. A year later, he refused to sign an agreement to invade the Warsaw Pact troops and had to leave education for political reasons. He became a worker in the Liberec quarry, trained as a stonemason and graduated for the second time at the Industrial School of Stonemasonry in Hořice. In 1985 he passed rigorous examinations in the theory of mathematics at Charles University and became a stonemason with a doctorate title. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he became the director of the School Office in Jablonec nad Nisou. In 1996, he was elected senator for the Czech Social Democratic Party. He has been retired since 2000, with his wife he has four children, fourteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
