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11/17

The demonstration started at 4 pm, but at that time, I was still in the tram heading for Albertov. The tram was totally full with young people wearing flowers and ribbons in national colors. We were standing in the first coach so we could hear the operator’s radio very well. Although normally it’s relatively quiet, the radio worked as crazy today. It frequently evoked eruptions of laughter in the tram, after we heard messages such as: "Every operator going to Albertov listen now. You are not permitted to go there." "Why?" "We just got it from the top!" "Well, what should I tell the passengers?" "‘Dammit, tell them the road is closed, or make up something else." "But they’re not gonna believe me!!"; etc.

So we had to get off already at the Charles Square and joined a huge crowd marching to Albertov. The trams passing us by were not all empty, though, a couple of solidar operators rejected the orders and continued to Albertov with their passengers. When we reached Albertov, the place was already full with about 8000 people. Although it was already half past four, demonstrators were still arriving.

We were standing quite far from speakers, so we caught just a few words from a speech of someone. Most of the time, people agreed with him, and whistling and other signs of dissatisfaction could only rarely be heard from the crowd. The next speaker was probably a kind of an "official representative", because the crowd reacted to him with whistling supported by anti-Jakes cry.

It all lasted till about 4:45 pm. Then, we were passed by a few university student representatives holding the national flag, who formed the head of the march. The people had not started walking yet, though. It was not clear where to go: whether to follow the original plan and go to Vysehrad, or to move to Vaclavske namesti. Eventually, it was decided to go to Vysehrad. I think it was the best solution, since more people could join us and the demonstrators would get excited even more. The Vaclavske square, in contrary to Vysehrad, was all ringed by riot police and vans full of police (as I witnessed personally) so the demonstration would had been smashed at its very beginning.

There were no problems on the way to Vysehrad. The police even went out of our way, since this part of the demonstration was still permitted. On the site of the Vysehrad castle, some unknown complications stopped the head of the demonstration, but we eventually reached the central square of the castle. We lit candles and put flowers on graves there. As before, the crowd was crying for democracy and against the communists. Havel was requested by the crowd to speak, but he didn't show up -- most probably, he was already arrested in the morning. Then we sang "Ach synku, synku" in a pretty funeral rhythm. After about 15 minutes, we left Vysehrad and went downhills a little bit. We were singing the national anthem and calling for Havel again. Someone shouted that he indeed was already in the jail.

Another confusion occured a while later. Some people wanted to go back to "permitted" Albertov, while others called for "forbidden" Vaclavske square. None wanted to go home, though. It was only possible to oversee the crowd there at that time -- there were at least 12000 people in it. Eventually, the crowd was divided into the "Albertov" and "Vaclavske sq." marches. However, they met again on the bottom of the Vysehrad hill and the moderate wing decided to go to the square as well.

After about 10 minutes, we arrived to a street crossing, where a couple of police let only cars go so that none of us could cross. This caused a big delay (it should be noted that length of the march could have been as long as one mile). The police succeeded in breaking us into two parts, each consisting of 6 or 7 thousand people. Eventually, the part that was behind reached those of us who were in the front part, but about 2 thousand people were still kept at the crossing.

We were pretty noisy while walking to the Vaclavske square and our cry must had been heard far away. Almost no window kept closed and observers were also standing in the doorways of houses. Some of them joined us, but most of them stayed. They were frightened, because they probably had not seen such a mass of demonstrators before and could not estimate what the Jakes’ Smurfs would do. Czechoslovak flags were hanging from some windows and most of the elderly people were moved and cried silently.

Finally approaching the Vaclavske square! The march lost its orginal form since almost 13 thousand people were in the crowd then and a good half of the Old Town was full of people. After a while, we reached a place where there were three rows of the white-heads and a terrible lot of police behind them. The march slowed down, but it got denser, at least. When the head of the march reached the police line, we got face to face with the white-heads. They were armed with long clubs made most probably from wood, large transparent plastic shields and white helmets. When I saw that, I went a little bit more to the body of the crowd, since the police started to gather just behind the white-heads.

When I was in about 15-th row, the first police action started. Most probably, they just began forcing the people go back, but the crowd panicked. Everyone was running to the back not knowing what to do. However, hysteria lasted for just 10 seconds. Then the crowd started crying "Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid!", so we went back to our original positions. But then the police started pushing with their clubs. The front lines started shouting: "They’ve got steel" to the back. It only initiated a strong pressure inside the crowd, so another crying followed: "Sit down, sit down!!". Almost everyone did so. It was a fascinating look at a couple of thousand people sitting in front of the police.

The police continued they job with the clubs, though. Because they were already very close to me, I went back again; that time, to the first street crossing. I wasn’t sure whether they wouldn’t start beating also from the back -- then there would be no place to escape. The police action lasted for about 10 minutes and they were not willing at all to let us go to the Vaclavske sq. Suddenly, the last group that got lost at the first crossing arrived. Now, it was clear to everyone that all these thousands of people simply will not fit into the square. That was why the cry "River bank, river bank!" started and all the people began walking there slowly.

I wanted to continue, too, but the situation started looking pretty bad. In the neighboring streets, I had seen about 12 vans full of communist-party militia and police and new troops of the white-heads were still  arriving. I heard that even the fire-fighters were coming with water cannons -- simply, the regime seemed to get scared that everything could end up like in Eastern Germany.

When my friends and I were leaving, it was about 7 pm. We headed towards the Charles square, but could not get anywhere, since the police were everywhere. Virtually the whole Old Town and Albertov was full of the communist riot police that allowed only another police and police vans on the streets. We could not leave the sieged districts so we started to search for a hidden escape route. We succeeded, and walked through a narrow dark street to Stepanska street, just behind the backs of the police. We walked up to the subway station that was, surprisingly to us, not closed, and went home happy -- happy to have survived.

cont'd...