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From the testimony of a friend
(The Národní massacre, #3)

After we came to the river bank, the march continued towards the Vaclavske square through Narodni Trida. A lot of people had had to join us, because it wasn't possible to see the end of the crowd from the Narodni Divadlo. The demonstrators could be seen back to Manes and about 500 yards further.

When Narodni Trida got full, the police jumped in quickly from both ends of the Avenue and started squeezing the crowd. They squashed about 3 thousand people there. After that, a terrible lot of white-heads divided the mass using clubs into four groups (they shouted to us to "leave immediately, your demonstration is not permitted" about four times before). But people kept sitting on the ground.

The real hell started when the police started to beat everyone as mad. They beat our backs as well as heads, they kicked us to stomachs, they did not exclude children nor women. I witnessed personally how the first row of people was always pulled away by the police, terrorized, kicked into the vans and driven away. There was an incredible panic among people, most of them were bleeding.

Who tried to escape was caught and beaten. I saw a man with a 6-year old son running away, two white-heads running after them. They beat the little boy on his back with their clubs and when he turned to them they kicked him to his stomach.

I managed to escape by chance. When the first row was being pulled away by the police, I went with them voluntarily but then ran away not being guarded. On my way out, I saw the police letting people go out through the narrow street by the food-stand. But in reality, the police always pushed a dozen of people there and made them run into a small space where only 4 people could fit at once. They were beaten and kicked brutally there and allowed to leave after having enough of the terror.

I ran towards the Jungmann Square and I saw two armed military transporters there. One was transformed into a bulldozer and the other had a standard military equipment. Behind them, there were about twenty armed paratroopers wearing their red barrets standing ready for action. I was running away and under my feet, there was wood from the clubs crunching that didn’t endured the terror. I also saw about 8 vans carrying prisoners somewhere to the middle of nowhere. Other vans were still waiting....

Finally, I left the sieged area at about 9 p.m. and could run home.

 

cont'd... to the Day after