Iron Curtain Project

Constantin Jinga was injured when the revolution broke out in Timișoara.

6 November 2016

Constantin Jinga, Romania, 17 December 1989

“Two lines of soldiers were blocking the way. They were carrying machine guns. One protester asked: ‘Are you really going to fire? Aren’t you Romanians too? Are you going to shoot at your mothers and brothers?’ I was there with a friend. Next to us stood an old man and a mother with her little daughter on her arm.

“My friend had called me in the middle of the night: ‘There are hundreds of people in the square, clamouring for freedom. It’s unbelievable!’ At five o’clock in the morning, I couldn’t wait any longer. I went out in the dark and found a besieged city.

“Throughout Romania, people were waiting for a ‘spark’ those days. We only wanted one thing: an end to the dictatorship. We wanted food, electricity, but most of all freedom. The news of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November travelled through the streets.

“At nine in the morning, I had to be at the university. I had to work in the canteen that day. My parents dropped by because they were worried. I solemnly swore that I would be home at seven o’clock that night. Of course, there was only one thing my fellow students and I could talk about: the protests. We had to do something. We made serious plans to occupy the radio station that night, but first I wanted to see what the situation was so in the afternoon I went into the city. I heard gunshots, but I was sure they had to be blanks.

“I looked the soldiers in the eye. They were even younger than me, maybe just eighteen years old. An officer gave an order, and the soldiers took four steps back – I counted them. I could not believe they had opened fire on us until I saw the old man next to me collapse. I pushed my friend to the ground and fell down on her to cover her with my body. Before I even hit the ground, a bullet pierced my shoulder.

“Now I’m not going to be home on time,’ was the first thing I thought when I woke up in the hospital. The mother and her little girl had not survived. I myself still have problems with my shoulder, but do I regret it? No, not one moment, never! That day was one of the finest days of my life. Cruel, yet so incredibly beautiful.”

The revolution against the dictator’s couple Ceaușescu

The revolution against the Romanian dictator’s couple, Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, started in the city of Timișoara on 15 December 1989. A confrontation with the army and security forces culminated in a massacre that killed approximately a hundred civilians. On 20 December, the army joined the side of the protesters, after which Ceaușescu organised a loyalty rally on 21 December, that turned against him. People cut the communist symbol from the national flag, just as the Hungarians had done in 1956. The Ceauşescu’s fled on December 22 by helicopter but were arrested. After a show trial, the couple was executed on Christmas Day. The images of their corpses were seen all over the world. More than a thousand lives were lost in the Romanian revolution.

Killi Mirka grew up with a father who secretly played songs about freedom with his rock band. She sang in the vocal protests of the Singing Revolution.

6 November 2016

Killi Mirka (1969), Estonia, Tallinn 1988/1989

“It was like growing up in a very beautiful prison. Estonia is a gorgeous country. We had clothes and food, and although the clothes were ugly and the food was bad, we did have it. But we did not have freedom. And what that’s like is hard to put into words; it’s a feeling that’s in your heart.

“Actually, I’ve been angry and in protest my entire childhood. I come from a family of people who think critically. At home, we always secretly celebrated Christmas and Easter, which was strictly forbidden by the Soviets. Music played an important role in our house and my father was in a rock band. Increasingly, the group secretly started to play songs about freedom and the fatherland.

“I had to learn Russian at school, but I always refused to speak it. Because of that, and because I often came up with a clever reply, I have fought with Russian children several times. My life consisted of many small acts of protest.

“That small protest grew into something bigger in the summer of 1988. The first time I participated in a nightly singing protest, I went with my father, stepmother, and my little brother and sister. I was around eighteen years old. It was very dark at ten in the evening. We gathered on the spot where the normal song festival was held every four years: a massive music stadium with a large podium in the shape of some kind of shell.

“It was overwhelming to see how many people had come. Many protesters were holding an Estonian flag in their hands, something that had always been strictly forbidden. Once, my uncle had furtively shown me an Estonian flag at his place, but now people were holding the flags openly in their hands!

“Everyone sang Estonian songs together, about freedom and our country. It was very powerful and emotional. We were all standing together and that gave us hope. At the same time, I did not believe we would ever be free, it seemed a complete utopia.

“I think that the fact the police did not interfere was because many policemen were Estonians themselves. Deep in their hearts, they wanted freedom too. Furthermore, how on earth would they have managed to arrest hundreds of thousands of people for singing songs?

“After that, I attended so many protest concerts and singing events that I lost count. Singing had certainly helped to liberate Estonia because we were there as one nation. And when you’re united, you are much stronger.”

The Singing Revolution

During the Soviet era, singing songs of freedom and the fatherland was prohibited in the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In protest against the occupation, the Baltic people started to sing exactly those forbidden songs. It started small, for example with one song, secretly, at the end of a regular singing festival. In the summer of 1988, the bigger protest-singing events started to take place. At an event on 11 September 1988, 300.000 people joined in, a quarter of the Estonian population. The Singing Revolution reached its peak in 1989 when 2 million people formed the longest human chain ever from Tallinn (Estonia) via Riga (Latvia) to Vilnius (Lithuania), a distance of 600 kilometres.

Gesine Oltmanns was the front woman of the opposition movement in the GDR. She organised the first Monday Demonstration on 4 September 1989, which was the beginning of the peaceful revolution.

6 November 2016

Gesine Oltmanns (1965), Leipzig, 1988/1989

“In Leipzig, we felt like ‘the last pitiful remnant’, still stuck in the GDR. Let me remind you: at the end of the summer of 1989 many people had already fled Eastern Europe via the border crossing in Hungary. Our inner drive to protest against the injustice of the regime became stronger every day.

“I longed for the freedom to travel, to choose my own place to live and to make plans for the future. None of those things were possible in the GDR. My father was a priest, and because of that, I was not admitted to the academic programme I had chosen. I had lived in Leipzig for five years before I became politically active in 1988. When a group of activists was arrested in a brutal manner in Berlin, I knew I could no longer stay in the background. I had to do something.

“From 1988 onwards, we regularly organised activities. The opposition movement had weekly meetings after the prayers for peace in the Nikolai Church. We critically discussed various topics: from pollution to the injustice in the GDR and the politics of peace. We could only talk to each other during those meetings, because when you used the telephone, you knew the Stasi would listen in on your call.

“The first Monday Demonstration had a lasting impact on me. The prayers for peace had just finished. The people streamed out of the Nikolai Church, onto the square. Together with another activist, I rolled out a sheet that read: ‘Für ein offenes Land mit freien Menschen’ (‘For an open country with free people’). A few seconds later, the sheet was snatched from our hands by a group of very tall men – plainclothes Stasi officers. We tried in vain to hold on to the sheet. The other activist fell to the ground.

“This whole scene was filmed by a camera team from West Germany. That same night the item was broadcast on West German television, which many critical people from the GDR watched to inform themselves. Everybody saw what had happened that day in Leipzig, that we had made a statement.

“On Monday 18 September, my hope grew strong: that day, the square next to the Nikolai Church was filled with people. The police retreated for the first time. We kept on walking to the ring road of Leipzig, together with fifty thousand others. Even though some people were still arrested, I knew at that moment: there is no turning back, we will conquer the streets again.”

The Monday Demonstrations

The first demonstrations against the GDR took place in Leipzig. After 4 September, there was a protest every Monday, after prayers for peace in the Nikolai Church. In the beginning, the regime seemed to pose a great threat. But soon enough, the demonstrations became so massive that the GDR was no longer able to suppress them. After 9 October, when seventy thousand people took part in the protest, more and more people joined the movement. Cities like Dresden and Rostock followed the example of the Monday Demonstrations. And in early November, more than three hundred thousand people took part in a protest in Leipzig. The mass demonstrations played an important role in the peaceful revolution of the GDR. They were the prelude to the fall of the Wall.

László Nagy organised a picnic near the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary.

6 November 2016

László Nagy (1957), Hungary, 19 August 1989

“It was a wild idea, but I immediately said yes. Of course. I had just set up the local branch of an actual opposition party with five friends – opposition had only recently been permitted. One of those friends had a plan that sounded like a joke: a picnic right on the border of Hungary and Austria.

“The time was right, I could feel it. We had been acquiring more and more freedom in Hungary. No matter how happy that made me, I was worried as well. I’m not crazy. I knew how dangerous changes could be. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Prague Spring, the emergence of Solidarnosc in Poland – in all those instances, the opposition had eventually been violently crushed. You cannot make it alone as a state. We wanted to inspire the opposition movements in other Eastern Bloc countries with the reforms that had taken place in Hungary. The picnic would be a great statement. ‘Look at us, on the Hungarian border you can do what you want.’ A picnic would ridicule the Berlin Wall and the rest of the Iron Curtain. ‘Tear down and take it away’ became our motto.

“We knew what we were organising, but we didn’t really know what we were doing. Sometimes you only truly realise what you caused after decades have gone by. There had not been time to think about it anyway because we only had three weeks to get it done. Every day we worked on it. So much had to be arranged: flyers, toilets, permit business, inviting as many journalists as possible.

“On the day of the picnic, all my attention went to the press conference; I had to translate for the foreign journalists. I had no idea what was happening at the border at that moment. When I arrived there, I learned that hundreds of East German refugees had crossed the border. Slowly I started to realise what our little garden party had triggered. I leant against my car and thought: ‘How many years will I have to go to jail for this?’

Pan-European Picnic

On 19 August 1989, local Hungarian opposition parties organised a ‘Pan-European Picnic’ near the Iron Curtain between Hungary and Austria. The picnic was meant as a small peaceful protest, but many East Germans on holiday close to Budapest saw their chance to illegally cross the border to Austria in order to flee to the West. It was the biggest exodus of East Germans since the Berlin Wall was built. Instead of the 2000 people they had expected at the picnic, more than 20.000 turned up and tore down miles of barbed wire to take it home. On 11 September, Hungary announced that from that moment on the borders would remain open, allowing all refugees from Eastern European countries to go to the West. Two months later the Berlin Wall fell.

Mirka Chojecki-Nukowska was married to an employee of the trade union Solidarnosc and the family member of a famous Polish dissident.

6 November 2016

Mirka Chojecki-Nukowska (1955), Poland, 1980-1983

“Let me be clear: I was not a hero, I just travelled in their circles. At one of the student parties, I fell in love with the brother of one of the most famous dissidents in Poland. My brother-in-law founded KOR, the Workers’ Defence Committee. From this organisation, the trade union Solidarnosc later arose. With his underground publishing company, my brother-in-law published forbidden books and pamphlets on citizens’ rights.

“My husband helped him by smuggling paper and ink, and by distributing the printed materials. When the trade union Solidarnosc was established, he started working there. It was a euphoric time. The government even met the demands of Solidarnosc. However, after the declaration of martial law, all those changes were reversed and my husband was arrested. The authorities suggested to us to emigrate, just to be rid of us. ‘Absolutely not,’ I said. Poland was our country. They couldn’t make us leave.

“The small resistor was a statement – but a subtle one. We pinned it on as a brooch, as a sign of our resistance. I had a box full of them: a different colour for every dress. Some people wore it openly, but you could quickly hide it under your collar as well. It was dangerous if the wrong person saw it. It could cost you your job, for example. But it was also a relief when you discovered it on someone: then you knew he was on ‘your side’. That’s how we kept hope alive amongst ourselves.

“Eventually, my husband and I decided to leave Poland after all. We had three small children, the stores were empty. Because of his infamous surname, my husband couldn’t find a job. Furthermore, we were increasingly being monitored: there were, for instance, the surprise ‘visits’ of a neighbour who was also a police officer.

“I left the country because of my children. I didn’t think they should grow up in a country of lies, fear and suspicion. I wanted them to become honest, righteous people, but those kinds of people could not keep their head above water in Poland. I cried for seven months, then I left. It felt like my resistance was broken.”

Solidarnosc

On 14 August 1980, a strike started in the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. It quickly spread to other companies. After two weeks, the leader of the strike, Lech Walesa, announced that the communist government had met the 21 strikers’ demands – an unprecedented victory. It acknowledged the existence of the independent labour union Solidarnosc, only shortly after its foundation. A period of freedom and optimism began. Around 10 million Poles joined Solidarnosc, which emerged as a resistance movement for civil rights. The night of 13 December 1981, the Communist government put an end to it all by imposing martial law. Thousands of union members and activist were imprisoned without a trial or killed.

During the squatter riots, Karel Fassotte operated a radio jammer in order to disrupt police communications.

6 November 2016

Karel Fassotte (1953), the Netherlands, Amsterdam, 30 April 1980

“If people want to know where I come from, I always say: ‘Out of the gutter’. I come from a working class background, and when I was eighteen years old, I was already living on the streets. I joined the squatters’ movement out of sheer necessity: there were no houses available for young people.

“In the late seventies, I became the director of a foundation that was pushing for housing for young people, but I knew that some tough action was needed to get real influence. Indirectly, I was asked to listen in on police channels at squatter riots, and that went very well.

“The coronation of Queen Beatrix on 30 April 1980 was the moment for us to expose the government and run amok. Our slogan? ‘No housing, no coronation’.

“The day before the inauguration, I brought the radio system to the Groote Keyser, six buildings that symbolised the squatters’ movement. With a group of four men, we had – in secret – furnished a room on the top floor of the building. From there, we could quickly get away with the equipment if need be. The buildings were barricaded with steel plates and on the roof were refrigerators and buckets of motor oil. The pantry was stocked with fireworks bombs.

“We had an ‘interference group’ and a ‘monitor group’. You could interfere by putting a carrier wave on the police signal and by transmitting at the same moment the police did. We made sure that the police speakers would make a screeching sound or a low hum. All those noises really grated on the police officers’ nerves: we could hear commanders swear and get frustrated. This created even more chaos on the streets.

“Right at the moment that it got out of hand at the Blauw bridge, I went into the city centre. Many people were about: squatters, but ordinary students as well and football supporters, curious people and hooligans. I was a professional activist: I was anti-militarist and anti-imperialist. But most people didn’t want a different society: they just wanted a place to live.

“I still see it as a great day. Every time we thought: ‘Now they’re not going to take it any longer.’ But the police didn’t have a choice. Later that night, we packed up the equipment, carried it down, loaded up the car and drove away.”

‘No housing, no coronation’

Amsterdam has had a housing shortage since World War II. From the mid-seventies, there has been an organised squatters’ movement. Squatting was allowed because moving into a house or building that had stood empty longer than one year was not a criminal offence. In the late seventies, the fight intensified. The culmination was reached on 30 April 1980, the day that Queen Beatrix was inaugurated. The squatters used the rhyming slogan: ‘Geen woning, geen kroning’ (‘No housing, no coronation’).

Marjan Sax, feminist activist, occupied an abortion clinic to prevent its closure.

6 November 2016

Marjan Sax (1947), the Netherlands, Heemstede, 18 July 1976

“We had just started dinner when the phone rang. ‘They are going to close the Bloemenhove clinic!’ Marie José said. ‘Tonight! At eight!’ I got straight in the car with two others from our commune.

“I had never been to an abortion clinic before. It was some kind of villa with a large driveway. Very impressive. We entered into a large hall with lots of benches, and we thought: what do we do now?

“All of a sudden, a door opened and a row of neatly looking gentlemen walked through the hall. The last one was carrying some sort of toolbox with him. They disappeared through a door on the other side of the lobby. We decided to follow the gentlemen and came in a ward where women were lying in beds: they had had an abortion that day and were now resting.

“The row of gentlemen walked to a room that turned out to be a surgery. The men themselves proved to be a delegation from the Department of Justice, and the purpose of the toolbox was to seal the treatment rooms.

“Suddenly, we knew what we had to do. With our little group, we stood in front of the door of the surgery. ‘Ladies, may we please pass through!’ the prosecutor said. I was in front and felt the heart of the person behind me, beating against my back. Then I heard myself say with a squeaky voice: ‘No!’

“From that moment on, we stopped the men. We stayed in the surgeries until they were gone. It was a strange room, with speculums and such things. On a little radio we listened to the ten o’clock news, which announced: ‘This evening, the Bloemenhove Clinic has been occupied by protesting women.’ That is when we finally realised: we have occupied the clinic!

“That same evening, the prosecutor gave a press conference in a small room at the clinic. I was there. When I realised how serious the situation was and what the influence was of our actions, I got the giggles so terribly that they removed me from the room. It was the emotional release that caused it. And pride.

“We occupied the clinic for two weeks with hundreds of people. People came and went, we slept in turns. It was quite an organisation in which I played some sort of leadership role. I really had to get used to that.

“When the judge decided the clinic could not be closed, we ended the occupation. It was the beginning of the legalisation of abortion in the Netherlands.”

occupation of the Bloemenhove abortion clinic

On 18 July 1976, protesters occupied the Bloemenhove abortion clinic in Heemstede. Minister van Agt, the then Justice Minister and an ardent opponent of abortion, had wanted to close the clinic. In the Bloemenhove clinic, ‘late’ abortions of pregnancies up to twenty weeks were also performed – a thorn in the eye of the Minister. In the Netherlands, abortion was illegal at the time, but it had been ‘tolerated’ for many years.
With the slogans ‘Remove abortion from the penal code!’, ‘Abortion covered by health insurance!’ and ‘The woman decides!’ the feminist movement fought in the 60s, 70s and 80s for the legalisation of abortion, which was finally implemented in 1984.

Fiona Conrads occupied the university together with hundreds of others in the city of Tilburg in the south of the Netherlands.

6 November 2016

Fiona Conrads (1950), the Netherlands, 28 April, 1969

“Those first nights we slept on chairs in the auditorium. The mayor came to check on us and did not like it one bit that girls were sleeping there as well. We just said: ‘Hi, we are not going to leave anytime soon!’

“I was one of the few female students there. My parents had wanted me to finish nursing school, but I was determined to go to university. At seventeen I ran away from home and started to live in a commune.

“I think that people will begin to protest when the gap between their possible future and the reality in which they live becomes too large. In the late sixties, the Dutch economy flourished and consequently there was a need for many highly educated people. Young people from working class families were recruited to study on scholarships. ‘Good, now it’s our turn!’ those boys and girls thought. But they clashed with the existing traditions. For example, there were fraternities you were only allowed to join if your father’s bank account was fat enough.

“I really hated the fifties and early sixties. You were not in charge of your own life. We saw what the elite did wrong. We were against the war in Vietnam, we idolised Martin Luther King. We were very concerned with what was good and bad – the process of coming to terms with World War II had only just started. We participated in protests and organised debates and expositions.

“In 1969, the universities were going through a turbulent period. Sit-ins were held and a few young men painted the words ‘Karl Marx University’ above the main entrance. The occupation of the telephone exchange was the last straw for the chancellor of the university. He decided to suspend all classes. That is when we occupied the college. It was unthinkable not to participate; you were a member of a club, it was part of your identity.

“In retrospect, that was exactly why what we were doing was so dangerous: your personal life, your living arrangements, your friendships, your education – everything was connected. When the club fell apart, I lost everything at once. In the period that followed the university occupation, the Communist Unity Movement of the Netherlands emerged. They had a very strict doctrine. That discipline again; I would have none of it. I was certainly impressed by the ‘young Marx’, but I did not believe in Marxism-Leninism. Conflicts arose in our small group; in the end, there were only six of us left. Yes, I’m still disillusioned with it.”

Occupation of the Catholic College in Tilburg

On 28 April 1969, the then Catholic College in Tilburg, a city in the south of the Netherlands, was occupied by students. Inspired by the student protests in Paris of 1968, the Dutch students demanded changes to the educational system and more participation and democracy. Eight days after the students had occupied the buildings, most of their demands were met. Later that month, students occupied the University of Amsterdam. In 1971, the Law on University Governance Reform was passed by which the student participation was officially arranged. (Incidentally, that influence was curtailed in the nineties. In 2015, a few hundred students occupied the University of Amsterdam again. Their protest signs read: ‘More participation, more democracy!’

Jaroslaw Zajic’s brother Jan set himself on fire in Prague.

6 November 2016

Jaroslaw Zajic (1947), Czechoslovakia, 25 February 1969

“He had taken the train to the capital, carrying a suitcase full of half-litre bottles with a chemical cleaner. They say he was alone when he set himself on fire. Before he could reach the famous Wenceslas Square, he collapsed.

“My brother was only eighteen. At an even earlier age, he had learned to be on his guard at all times. He was used to it now: you never discussed what you heard on Radio Free Europe, which we listened to at home. However, at the start of 1968, everything that had been previously banned was suddenly permitted. Of course, we took advantage of this! Jan wrote poems and pamphlets, attended every debate he could find and read books that had been banned up to that time. He was euphoric, just like the rest of the country.

“Even when the tanks of the Warsaw Pact occupied Prague in August, my brother remained hopeful: he had seen the strength of the reform movement, which would surely not be daunted easily. At school, he plotted student protests against the oppressor with classmates. But more and more people backed out. They were afraid. In Jan’s eyes, they reconciled themselves to the situation. He still wanted change, but there were no groups left to join.

“In January 1969, the student Jan Palach set himself on fire in protest against the occupation. That act jolted the country awake again. My parents and I felt that such a deed didn’t solve anything, but my brother was gripped by its effects. Without telling us, he went to Prague to join the hunger strike of students he didn’t know. Those days in Prague affected him deeply. Thousands of people took to the streets for Palach’s funeral. I think that that convinced him that it was possible: organising a massive protest, standing together for something.

“A few weeks later, nothing remained of that protest. We knew that Jan was sad about it, but that he would do this…

“He left us a letter. ‘Hopefully, my act will make your lives better,’ he wrote. It wasn’t a protest against the repression, as is sometimes said. It was a protest against passivity. He believed the people needed one more spark. ”

The Prague Spring

At the start of 1968, Alexander Dubček, who advocated ‘socialism with a human face’, came to power in Czechoslovakia. He abolished censorship and wanted to make the country more liberal and democratic. This lead to the Prague Spring: a wave of nonviolent civic activism. On 20 Augustus, tanks of the Warsaw Pact put an end to this. Almost all reforms were reversed.
In an extreme form of protest, student Jan Palach put himself on fire in Prague on 16 January 1969. He called himself ‘torch number one’. One month later, Jan Zajic wanted to follow his example in the same square, holding a flaming ladle as a torch in his hand. However, he collapsed, his body burning, before he could even reach the square.

László Baranyi was a freedom fighter during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

6 November 2016

László Baranyi (1926), Hungary, October 23, 1956

“I climbed a railing to get a better view: I saw the statue of Stalin being pulled down. ‘Woooooooo’ it sounded from thousands of mouths at the same time. It felt like a volcanic eruption.

“All my colleagues were excited; everyone wanted to do something. But my mother had warned me. I was 29, I had fought in World War II. I had saved lives, I had been in mortal danger – I had had my fair share, she said. Besides, I had just got married. She wanted me to leave the revolution to the young people. I complied. I didn’t participate.

“The next day I heard tanks in the distance – it had to be the Americans coming to liberate Hungary. It seemed clear to me that the protesters were winning. I couldn’t wait to reach the city centre.

“But as I got closer, I heard sounds I knew from the war: crying, screeching. Kossuth square was strewn with bodies and there was blood everywhere. Frantically, I started to carry the wounded to ambulances. When I left the square, hours later, something had changed inside me, as if a switch had been flipped. I was completely determined: I had to join the rebels. I wandered through the streets, presenting myself to strangers: I knew how to use a gun, so where should I sign up?

“At the resistance paper The Truth, they gave me a shot of liquor. It calmed me down. They gave me a weapon. For days, I didn’t have to use it; the Soviet troops retreated. However, rebels were imprisoned at the headquarters of the Communist Party. The crowd asked for their release. Some of the rebels wanted revenge, and they shot at the Party building. I told them I didn’t agree with that. We wanted new rules: no vigilante justice, no mutiny, the revolution had to stay ‘clean’. But suddenly the soldiers from the Party building opened fire on the crowd. That was the moment I picked up my gun and started fighting.

“Despite everything, the days after the fight there was a lot of joy because we believed a new era had come. The only thing we had to do was wait for the Western forces.

“And then the Soviet troops invaded. We distributed newspapers, trying to keep hope alive. In anticipation, we listened to Radio Free Europe. There they told us how to make Molotov cocktails. I cried when I heard that, because I realised: nobody is going to come and help us. We are lost.”

the Hungarian Revolution of 1956

What started as a student protest, on 23 October 1956 in Budapest, grew into a massive uprising against the communist regime. Protesters were carrying the Hungarian flag with a hole in it: they had ripped out the communist emblem. Citizens set up resistance groups and fought against the Hungarian secret service ÁVH and the Soviet troops. It looked as if the revolution was successful. Moscow ordered the Soviet troops to withdraw, and the reformist Imre Nagy took charge. On 1 November, he announced that Hungary would pull back from the Warsaw Pact. On 4 November, however, Russian tanks drove into Budapest and shattered the revolution. Nearly 200.000 Hungarians fled the country.

ToldUntold #8 How I became a secret police informant

1 July 2016

In february 2016 we received this anonymous letter. The sender describes his fate: How he became a secret police informer without ever feeling like one. We publish the letter in a slightly shortened version.

My father died when I was thirteen. My mother got a job as a warehouser, and decided she would provide for me and my brother, until we graduated from high school. After that we would have to stand on our own feet.
The first lesson on the first day of high school I will never forget. Each of us had an application form to enter the Union of Czechoslovak Youth (ČSM) in front of us, and our new class teacher K. instructed us to fill it.

The second year began with an application form to obtain the Fučík insignia. Also, we had to read certain books, like The Darkness by Jirásek, The Knight with the Golden Star on his Forehead by some soviet author and Cement by yet a third one.
In our third year we entered the Union of Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship, and I forget what we entered into in the forth year, but every year we were handing ind old papers and receiving new ones.

(…)

After finishing high school I got a job that paid 960 Kč per month. Girls got 660. In the autumn I was drafted for two years of military service. Brainwash on the theme of imperialism, the camp of world peace, Religion as opium of the people (Marx?) and so on and so forth. Warm shower once a week, no vacation, immeasurable bullying and humiliation.

(…)

During my second year of military service I began thinking about what to do afterwards. In a letter my brother told me, that he was going to study after high school and that he planned to find himself a student job on the side. So I decided to head the same way. At that time when someone wanted to study, he or she had to have a recommendation either from the never-sleeping eye of the party (KSČ – The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia – editors note), from the headmaster of his or her secondary school, from his or her employer (for distance learners), or from the unit commander when one was in the army. I obtained and filled in the application form and went to see the colonel Mr. V. He greeted me the question: “And have you, comrade H., considered entering the Communist Party?” No, I haven’t,” I answered. “Well, then do.” Three days later I came back. “So, did you think about it?” I answered: “In Rudé právo (state newspaper – editors note), I read that the Communist Party is the class conscious vanguard of the working class, something which I with my twenty years of age cannot be.” “Don’t worry, the party will help you.” – And why the fuck can’t the party help itself without me? I asked myself, but not him. One week later I was at colonel V. again. He waved two application forms in front of me and said: “Comrade H., if you sign up with us, I sign this for you,” and pointed to my form for the university. And because I was strongly determined to study and provide for myself at the same time, I pragmatically thought to myself that if a party has to get new members by blackmail, I shouldn’t have any scruples or feel guilty either. Then I signed. And so did he.

(…)

About three months after I started working, I was called up for military training in Milovice. Two employees of the secret service visited me there and offered me to work for them making economic analyses of Capitalism, the work might take place at some international organisation like the UN. They gave me a questionnaire, some thirty pages long, to fill in. Loads of questions, the last being: “What would you like to mention that we haven’t asked about?” I wrote that I would never want anything to do with weapons. One week later they came back and told me, they were sorry, but I wouldn’t work for them – the head recruiter explained that working for them is demanding and that the agreement must be unconditional. However, it seems I was still in good standing at them, which would turn out to be an advantage later on.

(…)

In august 1968 I’d left for a business trip abroad. Upon my return I attended a public meeting where I renounced the invasion of the army (invasion of the Soviet Pact – editors notes) as filthy and a violation of international laws. In May 1971 I was expelled from the Party and dismissed from my job. At that time it wasn’t allowed to be unemployed, one might face prosecution for parasitism. The factory “Armabeton”, a hat-factory, a sawmill and a number of other places had no interest in employing a political villain. Thus, I became a stoker at a wine-producing facility for 930 Kč per months plus a litre of white wine every Friday. I got fired one month later and then became a storeman.
Once at Wenceslaus’ Square I met a foreigner whom I knew from abroad. He invited me for a cup of coffee and a chat. He needed help because his task was to start a branch of his business in Prague. That’s how I was hired as a driver and translator, but first and foremost as an advisor in business matters.

(…)

After a couple of years the Administration of Diplomatic Services came to notice this non-registered Western company, and as soon as they found out about it, they started investigating who was working there. Thus, I was summoned for a meeting where they checked my reference letter file and blamed me for criticizing the occupation in 68. If I hadn’t done that, I could have been an chief executive by now, they told me. Nonetheless, in the end they did provide my ID papers with the required stamp, and I gratefully handed over a bottle of whiskey in return. (From then on I always came once a year, got a stamp and handed over a bottle in exchange).

Two weeks later I found a notice behind the screen wipers of my car. Due to an alleged infringement I was summoned to Bartolomějská (the head quarters of the secret police – eidtor’s note). That’s where I met M. who started our meeting by throwing the notice into the bin, whereupon he informed me that he was an employee of the Secret Police (StB) and asked me whether I was willing to cooperate. I asked him if that means I’ll be informing against friends when they tell jokes about Husák (the president of socialist Czechoslovakia from 1975 till 1989 – editor’s note). But that wasn’t going to be the case, he assured me. He told me that he works for a department that fights external enemies. I answered that I’m a patriot and would gladly fight an external enemy. Most probably the two of us had rather different enemies in mind. And so I signed some kind of contract with him.

From then on I met with the employee of the Secret Police (StB) once a month at a low-budget restaurant. We took turns paying lunch and beer for both of us. Originally, he was a forest worker from Šumava, later he’d become a border guard and then finally recruited for the StB. And he stuck to his words and never asked me for information about anyone. Instead he wanted to learn about economics. Every once in a while I also was allowed to travel abroad for work, but I never got permission to take any trips abroad with my family, not even to Yugoslavia.

(…)

Once during the fall of 1988 at one of our monthly lunch-discussions with the StB employee I non-intentionally came to express the opinion that the socialist state hasn’t much reason to fear any external enemy, but that its own economy is so weak and fragile that it may lead to a break-down at some point – much similar to when an old television implodes. Only one week later I was requested to attend a meeting at the head quarters. Besides from me and the usual StB employee two further employees were attending, probably supervisors. They asked me what my comment about the economy was supposed to mean? Where had I gotten this information form? When would it happen? I assured them, that these were only my own personal thoughts, which again were informed only by our own national media and the socialist education system. I really had no idea that within a year it would all be breaking down and that by then the StB employee would inform me that all my papers had been transported to a paper factory and leached out.

(…)

[After 1989 when the business Mr. H worked for had been closed] a banking executive called me and invited me to come by his office. He offered me a position as a chief executive for a subsidiary company for which he was also a member of the board of directors. After approximately three months he had me pay an invoice of 32.000 CZK for some IT services which I’d never ordered and also not received. He answered my objection by telling me that I should also order some “services.” A couple of month later another invoice, now for legal assistance, which also wasn’t ordered or received by anyone. So I quit.

(…)

This way of restoring capitalism in the Czech Republic is to none of my likings and so I founded a consultancy firm offering advice in how to establish companies.

(…)

Today I have become a believer. I don’t accumulate material possessions, I only buy the food I need or replacement for something that has broken. I enjoy going to the theatre, the cinema and attending concerts. I read positive literature, and my old-age pension is only slightly above average. I observe with worry the self-destruction of our society: selfish politicians and media players who with the help of constantly improving technology are cutting the branch under our planet.
Considering the people from my story who are still alive, I have chosen to stay anonymous.

ToldUntold #2 Three kisses

1 July 2016

A true story by Blanka K.

This story arrived to us by email, it’s written by Blanka K. and reflects her own personal experience with the dark sides of the former regime, where personal feelings and power politics get messed up. Documentary maker, Brit Jensen, has asked Mrs. K for an interview, but she replied that these are things she is still unable to speak about. This is her letter.

The year 1990 found me standing at the Andel square in Prague together with Standa. We stood facing each other, carefully observing one another. We were both in our forties.

“Come on, let’s have a drink!” Standa said tentatively and took hold of my elbow. I pulled away and looked at him sceptically, not really understanding a thing. Then I slowly turned around and walked away from him in a calm, but firm pace. That’s the point where Standa must have known that he’d just lost me forever. But it all started innocently and so long ago it’s almost hard to remember…

HE STOLE A KISS

The first kiss he stole from me at the stage during an amateur theatre performance of the novel Márinka by Mách. We were both young, and why deny that I must have looked pretty as Márinka. That was the first time Standa realised that his relationship to me, a slightly older friend, was transforming into something deeper.

Years passed and nothing seemed to change between us. We shared common interests, both loving books and theatre, and we regularly met in his parents’ villa, which they with a perfect sense of timing and foresightedness had donated to the state long ago. I turned down Standa’s shy, boyish endavours, but probably he was still carrying that first kiss with him, nourishing hopes.

At that time he was attending librarian school. He was ambitious and became one of the best students. He kept his feelings secret, probably out of fear that I’d tell him there was no hope of us having a relationship. Looking back, I suspect that maybe he was secretly hoping that his success at school would change things between us?
My wedding with Tomas must have shocked him. At the ceremony he wore a wry smile and made hypocritical toasts for us. While congratulating me he stole the second kiss from me right in front of Tomas’ eyes.
(…)

I NEED YOU

We lost sight of each other for a while. Standa finished his studies and changed his work at the library for a job as a shop assistant in a big bookshop. He was happy and everything would probably have stayed this way. But then sudden change came around when he received a postcard from Munich, to where I’d unexpectedly emigrated together with Tomas in the seventies – pressured by the circumstances of the times. The greeting wasn’t anything more than what you write on a holiday, something like ‘It is nice here and we’re doing well’. However, Standa read something in between the lines: I’m unhappy here, I need you…

He decided to go. During the interview to obtain a passport he must have promised to turn in a report upon his return. A stupid formality, he thought like many before him. Why not? There won’t be any return!

Our reunion in Munich was warm and friendly, but I felt how Standa’s teenage dreams awakened again. I kissed him – for the third time – as a welcome, and that was a mistake! Probably he thought that Tomas was too down-to-earth and pragmatic too satisfy my romantic soul and that I’m not very happy in Germany. And true enough, I did suffer from loneliness and homesickness.

Standa’s exit visa was expiring in ten days, but soon he admitted that he was considering staying in Munich. We weren’t trying to persuade him to stay, neither were we discouraging him. Instead, we tried to create a realistic outline of what would be in store for him: Finding work, adapting to the work and pace while proving that socialism hadn’t spoiled him. Getting to understand the local mentality and turn the initial distrustfulness into his advantage. Also, the simple advice to find new friends and good colleagues might turn out being more difficult than it seems at first.

Especially my husband insisted that Standa shouldn’t rush the decision. As the tenth day, the day of departure, was approaching, Tomas took Standa to see our doctor, a compatriot, who issued a certificate of sudden disease.

From the point when Standa decided to stay, Tomas and I started introducing him to all of our friends. We went with him to the authorities, helped with the documents at the immigration police and the asylum application. We found an apartment for him and helped with everything in words and deeds. A couple of months went on like this. Standa spent the time trying to win me over, but I refused and finally he realized that he wouldn’t succeed. He wrote a short letter, bitter and aggrieved, and caught the first train to Prague. He probably knew he would have plenty to explain, but I guess he wasn’t imagining the carousel of endless interrogations and interviews, which started as soon as he was back home.

FINALLY PRAGUE

Years passed and finally in ’89 it began stirring in the Eastern Bloc. Like all other compatriots in the West Tomas and I were excited and we were impatiently waiting for the moment when we could finally return to our home – and hopefully stay forever.
But how was Standa dealing with the changes on the other side of the iron curtain? I wasn’t to find out until upon my return.
(…)

Finally Prague! Sprinkle with a think layer of white snow, unstained by lies and injustice. The free, golden city with the hundred towers. We listened to the melody of the language. We ran around town, unable to get enough of the mosaics, the side-walks, the trams, the houses, the streets…

The reason Tomas had emigrated back then was that somebody has informed against him. Now he wanted to know and decided to take a look in the archives of the Secret Police (StB). What we found in the list of secret StB collaborators, was as much a surprise for Tomas as it was for me. The letters began dancing in front of my eyes: Stanislav Vébr, agent, code name Giant. I know that a lot of people were on the list wrongly, either because they refused collaboration or because they signed under pressure but didn’t actually provide any information. On the other hand, a considerable amount of archive material was shredded. What to do? I wouldn’t believe anything until Standa would tell me himself.

Our meeting was conducted in an atmosphere of mutual mistrust and watch-and-wait-mode. We stood in front of each other on the Andel square in Prague and watched each other disbelievingly.“Why don’t you object, why don’t you clear yourself?” I asked insistently, tears welling up in my eyes.Standa remained silent for a while and smiled uneasily.
“Come on, let’s have a drink!” he finally said with a hollow voice and grabbed my elbow. Was this supposed to be an apology? Or a confession maybe? I turned away from him.

‘I cried for seven months’

29 December 2015

MIRKA CHOJECKI-NUKOWSKA (60) fled Poland in 1987.

“In the Netherlands, this item lost all its meaning – it went back to being an ordinary electrical component. Yet in Poland it symbolized our resistance. We wore it as a brooch, a sign that signified our opposition against the system. I had an entire box of them, different colors for different dresses.

Let me say this: I was no hero, and I specifically do not want to come across as one. I was married to the brother of one of the most well-known Polish dissidents. My brother-in-law set up KOR, the Workers’ Defense Committee, which later turned into the union Solidarność. He had an underground publishing company where they published illegal books and leaflets on civil rights.

My husband helped him by smuggling paper and ink, and distributing publications. When Solidarność was founded, my husband got a job there. He was arrested during martial law, and that’s when the authorities advised us to leave the country. ‘Never’, I said. Poland was our country. They could never make us leave.

The tiny resistor was a statement, yet a subtle one. Some people wore it in plain sight, but you could also choose to hide it under your collar. If it was noticed by the wrong person, you might lose your job.

Eventually my husband and I decided to leave Poland after all. We had three young children and the stores were empty. Having a notorious last name, my husband would never find a job again. Besides, they started monitoring us, witness the unannounced ‘visits’ of a neighboring police officer.

I did it for my children. They couldn’t grow up in a country made up of lies, fear, and mistrust. I wanted them to become honest, righteous people, but those were exactly the kind of people that didn’t survive in Poland. My husband went ahead to find a job in the Netherlands. The children and I would follow later. I cried for seven months, then left. It felt as if my resistor had broken.”