22nd August 1978, an accusation of robbery

On 22^nd August 1978 I was accused of robbery. The date is significant, it was the tenth anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

In the night from 21 to 22^nd August I was in the zoo doing my night-shift as a night watchman. When I came home in the morning of 22^nd August, my wife told me that I got a phone call from the Reuters News Agency and that I should call them. I did. The man who took the telephone apologised for calling me: ‘Would you go with me to the Wenceslas Square. I phoned everybody I could think of, but they all have left Prague for the day.’ – All dissidents were asked by the police to leave Prague for the day. I did not see any ground for doing so. –  I must confess I was not enthusiastic about the Reuters man's request, but I did not say no. We went together to the Wenceslas Square, up to the top of the Square. There we stood in front of the monument upon which St Wenceslas is sitting on his horse. If anything was to happen, it would happen there. In those days the public toilets were just in front of the monument. After standing in front of the monument for quite a while, we both needed to go to the pissoir. When we were in the toilet, an attempt to mark the anniversary took place. A student from East Germany stood in front of the monument and unfolded a post expressing solidarity with the Prague Spring of 1968 and protesting against the Warsaw Pact Invasion. He was immediately arrested and taken away. It was the only protest that took place on that day.

When I came home my wife told me that the police phoned. She gave me a telephone number that I should call. I did. The policeman who took the phone told me that on that morning a robbery was committed in the workshop situated in the basement of the house in which we lived: ‘The description of the person who committed the robbery fits you.’ I replied: ‘Just listen to your tape-recording of my morning telephone conversation,’ and hung up. I never heard about that robbery again.