Witness Jiří Fryč recalled the events of 1968 for Deník: “I turned on the radio in the morning and didn’t want to believe that Warsaw Pact troops could attack us. I rode my bicycle to work and many of the people there didn’t even know it. Then cars and armored personnel carriers started speeding along the road towards Kyšice, helicopters with stars pointing their way. Somewhere between Ejpovice and Rokycany, the ‘allies’ were housed in the forest. I didn’t return to Rokycan until late afternoon, and the Russian convoy followed me on its way. It wasn’t a feeling fun,” he recalls.

The next day he went to Prague to see his father. The news coming from the capital did not leave him alone. “On the way, I saw repaired signs, endless lines of foreign troops in Prague, shots of facades of houses, tanks aiming at several centers. This is where the statue of Ivan was taken down. For example, Pavel Komárek took part in it. Then he ran into trouble and for a long time he only did additional work. The protest sheet was signed in front of the town hall. Most of the leaders who led the resistance then became normal. Those who did not lose their status and, like ordinary people, were transferred from one place to another. For example, my current wife had to leave Rokycan to teach at Zbiroh, and Zbirožák Emil Hán the other way around. They had the same agreement and neither of them were popular,” recalls Fryč.

The colonists settled near Ejpovice

“Get up, son, it’s war, I got up early for the holiday, already before six, by a shaken grandmother,” explained Jaroslava, who was then fourteen years old. “It doesn’t make sense to me. He said that Russia, Poland, East Germany invaded here… only the Warsaw Pact, where the Czechoslovak Republic is also located. I remember after that, my grandmother rushed to the shop, which was already in front of her.” huge queue of people. He brought home boxes of sugar, flour, salt, coffee beans and some canned goods with the cart. He wanted to have some supplies for the first time, like he used to get from World War II,” he said. “Because of my age, I don’t understand much about what happened even then, but I well remember the feeling of not being free and how we wrote messages with chalk on the roads driven by the occupying forces,” added the woman from Sayat.