Mark Jirásek

"After they beat us up, I started to get hate. I saw them beating young girls. And the hatred grew and I wanted to show it somehow. I was offered a charter. I read it, I agreed, I signed it, and I was a signatory to Charter [77]."-"What was significant to you about Charter 77 with respect to the times?" - "For me it was significant because it was a sliver of new hope, of resistance. Until the Charter, there was no resistance. People were reconciled to the situation as it was. They took it that they had to bow their heads, and they went. And suddenly the Charter was a sliver of new hope of the resistance, that something could start happening and people were not going like sheep and that there were people who would rebel and would rebel openly. And they will admit to it and they will do it not covertly but openly. They will openly express their hatred of the system that we live in. Only about two thousand people signed the charter. I understand that today, because there were a lot of people who agreed with the Charter, who I gave it to to read, but they said, 'You know, Čenda, we have a family. They didn't sign it for these existential reasons, so as not to hurt their children, because they knew they would lose their jobs and have problems. Of course, whoever had a higher position and signed the Charter had to leave it." - "Did you go into it knowing what would happen afterwards?" - "Yes. I knew I was going to have problems. I knew I would have no future in this republic. But I didn't give in, and the feeling of hatred outweighed the fact that there would be trouble, and I had to express myself. Hate won."

"I even had Pepa Nose at my house. The poet Heřman Chromý came to my house. About sixty people came to my apartment. I had the flat of my grandmother, who had died. It was quite big. Pepa Nos, Heřman Chromý, sixty people came. But it didn't take long. After about half an hour, fifteen police cars arrived. They surrounded us. All the people wanted to run. We said, 'No, nobody run. We're not doing anything wrong.' The cops came. Of course they interrupted, cancelled, checked all the IDs and then we were called for questioning in the 'estébárna'. Of course there was Korčák and Borový, two policemen. Two State Security officers who played good guy and bad guy. Good cop, bad cop. One of them came and said: 'Čenda, you can have such a nice life. Just sign a few things here and you can have a nice life.' I said, 'I won't sign.' The other one came: 'If you don't sign, you'll see.' Again the pressure. I said, 'I won't sign. I won't tell you anything. You can do whatever you want with me.' It was like that several times in the interrogation. Then, of course, they came and did a search about three times, because there were always informers among us again. There were always some informers who probably told me that I was distributing letters and distributing the Charter. They came and searched the house. I wasn't stupid, so I didn't have anything at home. I had everything hidden in the attic, so nothing was found, but they went through everything. They were doing their job as an SS man."