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19.11.

11:40 am:

Writer: XXX called me. I’m totally down. THE BASTARDS KILLED SOMEONE!!!

The person is Martin Smid from the school of mathematics of the Charles University. He’s said to be finished by the kicking of the paratroopers. It’s horrible! Now, something has to happen finally! The line Opletal - Palach - Smid simply must mean something! Similarly to 1939, when Nazis murdered Jan Opletal, the same Nazis murdered Martin Smid in 1989. Half a century.

A meeting of all high-school students to support the university students is scheduled to be held at 3 pm at the Stalin site. Something must happen! The blood will be running. A lot of blood will be running. Every revolution is blood.

My parents -- or mother, specifically -- won’t let me go. She’s terribly scared . She represents a typical position of Czech men and women who’re complaining but doing nothing. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand her...

4:40 pm:

I’m listening to Free Europe’s news every hour. They said the official Czechoslovak representatives denied that anyone had died on the demonstration. But it is said that the witnesses of the beating of Martin Smid were arrested and his parents had a visit from the police. The parents then left for an unknown place.

No information is allowed to go out of the hospital where Martin Smid was hospitalized; however, someone called to the radio Free Europe from there saying that he was dead. I haven’t heard to the official news of the radio and TV. I don’t know yet what’s the situation with today’s Stalin meeting.

 7:40 pm:

Thanks God, noone is dead. Both people whose name is Martin Smid (both students of the same school) were shown alive in the TV.

Already in the afternoon, secret police stormed the homes of the dissidents and arrested a few of them. Uhl was arrested for spreading of rumors. There was a big demonstration in the evening.

I got another call, from XXX. He told me there was a strike planned for tomorrow on our school. About 100 people from the school were at the Central Committee of the Socialist Youth Union with a petition, but they haven’t accomplished anything. It’s gonna be wild!

Post Scriptum. In the TV, there was an interview with both students with the name of Martin Smid. It was obvious that one of them had not been on the demonstration, while the other was still shaking himself, spoke with breaks and not clearly and the TV camera only rarely showed his face -- focusing just on the exit door from the room where the interview took place. The whole interview was shot in black and white with almost no contrast, in order to hide how much he was ruined. They say: a technical defect (sic!) They also showed some pictures from today, but already when the square was almost empty. So -- nothing happened at all, right?

 

cont'd...